Silver City, NM, December 19, 2019— The National Park Service and the USDA Forest Service – Gila National Forest are hosting a celebration of the life and achievements of Aldo Leopold on the anniversary of his birthday, Saturday, January 11, 2020. Join us at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in the heart of America's first Wilderness to pay homage to the man who made it possible. There will be activities for kids, readings of Leopold's most influential essays and information booths. Don't miss out on the family fun!

The Gila Visitor Center will be open from 9:30 am until 4 pm, with event activities taking place from 10 am until 4 pm. NPS and USFS booths will be setup in front of the Visitor Center offering information and activities, while readings of Leopold’s essay, Thinking Like a Mountain will take place at 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm in the Visitor Center theater or amphitheater, depending on the weather. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument will also be open at 10 am and accessible to visitors until 3 pm, with the gates closing at 4 pm.

Aldo Leopold was born in 1887 in Burlington, Iowa. After graduating from the Yale Forest School in 1909, he joined the USDA Forest Service serving as a young forester in Arizona and New Mexico. In 1922, he was a key figure in the drafting of a proposal that led to the administrative designation of the Gila Wilderness two years later. The Gila Wilderness is not only the first wilderness area in America but also in the entire world, and this action occurred 40 years before the passing of the Wilderness Act. After that he moved to Wisconsin to raise his family, carry on his philosophy of conservation and writing countless essays and articles which led to A Sand County Almanac, a pivotal treatise on conservation. Leopold died in 1948 while fighting a grass fire on his neighbor’s property and is still held in high esteem as the father of wildlife ecology and the United States’ wilderness system.

For information on the Gila National Forest, check out our website at www.fs.usda.gov/gila  or join the conversation on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GilaNForest/ or follow us on Twitter @GilaNForest.

To plan a trip to the Monument, please call the visitor center at 575.536.9461 or visit the park’s website at www.nps.gov/gicl.