Sunday, March 13, 2016

Today, I decided to venture myself and drive up to Sanctuary El Rosario thinking that it might be opened due to the very sunny 2 days after the storm and being this the third day could be the Sanctuary would be open. On the way up, a native, hiring horses at Sierra Chincua, and going his way there, told me that Sanctuaries opened normally yesterday, Saturday; they were not totally closed to visitors.

Camera in hand, as I drove up, I started to catch the first impressions:
Halfway up, much before reaching “la Saluld” community (first community after leaving Angangueo), I realized how frosted sleet was still along side the road.

A good amount of canopy got either damaged/heavily hit by the strong winds, or burned by the intense frost of the now 4 frosting nights we have had.

The entrance to the Sanctuary is now clean. Tourists start to arrive and are welcomed to start their way up. As one goes up the stairway, some parts inside the forest ground look totally dressed in white. As one goes ahead, the first evidences of destruction come to sight; fallen branches and signs containing Monarchs’ literature are seen on both sides of the aisle, altogether with canopy burned out.

Halfway to the “Llano de los Conejos” the number of fallen trees starts to appear. Really very few Monarchs can be seen laying dead on the forest sleet along side the way up. More burned out canopy everywhere. Now, every other meters a live Monarch can be seen.

Right before reaching “Llano de los Conejos”, the area of mayor destruction at sight (right on the road) is of mayor destruction a sight, is evident; a kind of “tornado” right there, perhaps the wind blowing in special directions or perhaps one or two fallen trees caused hitting others causing a king of “collision”, so that around 11 huge Oyameles fell down in this area of approximately 100 x 100 sq. mts. Ejidatarios have started cut them into sections in order to remove them.

Llano de los Conejos- Seems clean, and by 10 a. m. to 12 hrs., I can say a pretty good quantity of Monarchs started to appear. Some areas look as if nothing had happened.

Once arriving to the entrance of the forest at “Llano de los Conejos”, only some hundreds of meters before reaching the colony, visitor realize the yellow rope around the area is forbidding the entrance into the forest; a group of guides standing there welcome visitors and explain to them that the Colony has to keep closed for some more days, because there may be an undetermined quantity of live Monarchs frozen on the layer of frozen sleet-snow, and people might kill them by stepping onto them. This way, they invite visitors to enyoy part of the performance by seeing Monarchs overflying Llano de los Conejos as the sunshine turns more intense during the day.

Some bushes had dead Monarchs, but among them, a few of them still alive.
Very few favorite flowers for Monarchs could have been not so badly affected, so there is the hope of some nectar for survival for them.

On the way back, some more view to the area of most destruction.Fighting to survive.

Some Telephone company employees repairing damages. All Ejidatarios calculate that by Wednesday, March 16 all of the remaining sleet-snow will have melted down. They calculate the Sanctuary will normally open next Saturday, March 19 for visitors wanting to see the main leave.

Until next week.

Estela Romero
Journey North Correspondent
Angangueo, Michoacán, México
March 13, 2016