Miramonte Fence Pull

Dan Noble State Wildlife Area

By Craig Grother

During the weekend of August 9 through 11, West Slope BHA members teamed up with Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff to remove 1.2 miles of old sheep wire fence and rebuild 2/3 mile of new wildlife friendly fence on the Dan Noble State Wildlife Area south of Norwood. On Friday the 9th, 5 CPW employees and 5 members of BHA started work to prepare a 1.2 mile section of old fence for removal. Around mid-day BHA provided lunch for the crew back at the Miramonte Lake campground. After lunch the crew started work pulling fence posts and rolling up wire with a “wire dog” implement on a skidsteer. At the end of the day we gathered back at the campground to recap the day over a few beers provided by BHA. Three BHA groups camped at the campground that night.

On Saturday the 10th, 2 CPW and 10 BHA members split into two crews and continued removing fence posts and wire while the second crew started building new fence in the sections we had removed the previous day. Around mid-day we went back to the campground for lunch provided by BHA. At the end of the work day we went back to the campground to review our accomplishments and start the BBQ for a pot-luck beast feed where we shared each other’s company and wild game dishes including mule deer, elk, and sockeye salmon. Coincidently, another group of about 40 cajuns were at the campground and invited us to a “boil” which included locally harvested crawdads from Miramonte – pretty amazing! Three BHA groups camped overnight again Saturday night.

On Sunday the 11th, 9 BHA members showed up to ready to help the CPW property technician finish removal of the old fence and continue to work on building new fence to replace the old one. At the end of the weekend we had removed 1.2 miles of fence and constructed 2/3 of a mile of new fencing. All of the old metal fence posts and wire was loaded into a large dump trailer to be hauled off to be recycled at Recla Metals in Montrose. CPW crews will continue to work on building the remainder of the new fence during the rest of the month.