June 13 to June 23 - The Grand Opening

This is a quick hello from the bi-weekly leader of the week, giving an update on our progress. Doing an inventory of the number of plants we had gotten into the ground since arriving in mid-March, we found we had planted 800 plants at the Mather Point area. Wednesday the 15th was the grand opening of the Visitor Center; it had already been open to the public for quite a while, but the small adjoining theater had only just been completed. After a short speech by the incumbent Grand Canyon Park Superintendent, the park was then given an incredible Native American blessing by two locals. Afterwards, we rushed to attend the most important part of the opening: free cake.

During the week, we had about a dozen ACE crew volunteers helping us out in our never-ending battle against invasives and the on-going crusade to keep Mather point watered. Reinforcements arrived later on in the week; we were joined for a couple of days by the local Youth Conservation Core. Thanks to all of the extra help, we were able to get the Visitor Center looking great for the opening. Next week we will be heading off down to Tucson to join our fellow SCA team in re-vegetate Saguaro Park trails. Hope that we survive!