El Diente is a park to the North of Guadalajara, Mexico. Its name, meaning “The Tooth,” reflects the park’s unique topography, which is characterised by large rocks and boulders. Due to it’s nearness to Guadalajara, it’s a popular spot for relaxation and outdoor activities, such as rock climbing, mountain biking, trail running, and hiking.
A local climbing gym organised an outing to pick up trash, and plant native trees. I volunteered and at 8am one Sunday morning, I made my way with other climbers to the park. We started out picking up trash. Since El Diente is near a number of villages, a lot of locals will go and drink and have bonfires, and so there was a lot of glass to pick up. After that, we separated into teams of 3 – 4 to start planting trees.
The baby trees had already been placed in ideal spots by the more experienced volunteers, and so our job was to dig a hole, place the tree and then add dead foliage on top in order to provide nutrients and humidity, and to give the trees the best chance of surviving the harsh climate. We also added small rocks around the tree to prevent pooling water from drowning the delicate roots.
My team and I planted around 6 trees and overall it took us 3 hours. By the end I was burnt, but satisfied with a job well done.
