About Our Naturalist Program

Since the 1980s, ACES has welcomed 12 to 14 Summer Naturalists every year to engage with our community. These enthusiastic college graduates, each with their own area of expertise in the environmental field, act as ambassadors for the greater Aspen area. They inspire connections to the natural world, reaching over 40,000 locals and visitors each summer.

reawaken from winter. “Spring is a time for all of us to start fresh,” he would say.

The process gave me an appreciation for the cyclical nature of trees and their seasonal adaptations—much like the way humans emerge in the spring with renewed vitality. This instilled in me a long-lasting awareness of how, like the trees, humans change with the seasons. When I share this story with guests, the spruce and fir trees around us come alive with their own intelligence and sophistication. My story prompts a shift in the way guests move with a revitalized sense of awe and reverence for our surroundings.

Storytelling is a necessary tool for working toward cultural and spiritual transformation. Everything we see in nature has a story to tell. When we allow ourselves the space to connect with these stories, we start to build our own relationship with our wild neighbors and come to value them for more than their scientific names. It seems the path forward in environmental stewardship has more to do with the cultivation of empathy than it does a concrete understanding of ecological dynamics. Working as a Naturalist has allowed me to understand my lifelong responsibility to share these stories and to be a steward of the planet. I’m proud to align my career and life path with the values I’ve been gifted from the natural world.  acre prescribed fire in Hunter Creek. With the same improvement and wildfire mitigation.

where plants can absorb it.

Prep in the vegetable field starts at the same time as spring flood irrigation. We work to loosen soils without inverting the earth, much like the ground squirrels and voles do while creating a network of tunnels under our feet. In soft soil we transplant seedlings. Come summer, we’ll do our best to harvest the vegetables before these animals do.

In his 1995 essay, “The Trouble with Wilderness”, William Cronon critiques the American myth of wilderness as a vast expanse of empty space “in which the human is entirely outside the natural.” My career as an environmentalist and as a farmer has been particularly shaped by Cronon’s ideas:

“If by definition wilderness leaves no place for human beings, save perhaps as contemplative sojourners—then also by definition it can offer no solution to the environmental and other problems that confront us… We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable human place in nature might actually look like…If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world—not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both.”

At ACES, we work as land stewards and farmers to pose the question, “How are we animals in this food chain?” At its heart, daily farm work is my way of rejecting the myth that I am separate from the surrounding ecosystem. Instead, it reminds me that we are part of it. Farming is an intimate act of co-creation with each plant and animal, both wild and domesticated. In moving water and animals over land, cultivating fertile soil and harvesting crops, the farmer takes on the same role as the beaver, the ecosystem engineer. Farming integrates humans and nature—like Cronon says, bringing wildness here, not keeping it “out there”. Working the land makes it hard to be unaware of our influence and the fact that there is more to the system, much of it beyond our understanding or control. 

About Regenerative Agriculture at Rock Bottom Ranch

At Rock Bottom Ranch, we consider ourselves land stewards first, farmers second. We are regenerative farmers working within the ecosystem to prioritize soil diversity, carbon sequestration, and animal welfare. We strive to connect agriculture and education, teaching young farmers and consumers about the link between land stewardship and food production. We also emphasize the value of connecting with the land that grows our food.

As an educational ranch, we teach aspiring farmers through our Farmer Training Program. We offer 7.5–month livestock and vegetable apprenticeships as well as shorter 2.5–month livestock and vegetable stewardships. Our apprenticeships are geared to those pursuing a career in agriculture while the stewardships are geared to those who want to experience working handson with regenerative agriculture.

Throughout the year, students of all ages visit the ranch to learn about regenerative agriculture, land stewardship, and how the two are linked. We offer community programs, special events, and CSA shares in an effort to connect our local community to our farmers and the food we produce at a scalable, regenerative level.