KEY PARTNERS Dolores Watershed Resilient Forest Collaborative, Mountain Studies Institute, The Nature Conservancy, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Fort Lewis College, Dolores Water Conservancy District, San Juan National Forest, New Mexico Highlands University

In 2021 and 2022, three snowtography sites were installed throughout the Dolores Ranger District. In 2023, Mountain Studies Institute led the installation of two additional snowtography sites in the San Juan Mountains, along with the Dolores District sites.

Snowtography is a low-cost monitoring technique that allows us to understand how different forest structures and canopy cover impact snow accumulation, retention and ablation. The House Creek and Chicken Creek sites are already helping build an understanding of the influence forest structure has on snow and soil moisture dynamics across a range of conditions and now with five sites, we are building a network to understand these relationships across the San Juan Mountains.