2013-National Public Lands Day South Platte Trail Construction at Chatfield State Park

Start Date-End Date: 09/28/2013-09/28/2013 Land Manager Office: Land Manager Contact: Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: NOTE: Registration for this opportunity is full. If you register, you will be placed on the wait list. Spend a morning helping to restore a section of the South Platte River Trail of Chatfield State Park in celebration of National Public Lands Day. Description: STEWARDSHIP SITE Chatfield State Park-located southwest of Denver-is a popular destination for those hoping to make a quick getaway from the city, open tonearly every type of recreationalist, including bikers, hikers, horseback riders, boaters, and fishermen. It is also home to an abundance of wildlife, including over three hundred species of birds, which is why the Audubon Society of Greater Denver runs an Audubon Center at the historic Atchison Ranch. VOLUNTEER PROJECT - WHAT & WHY Spend a day with VOC in partnership with Chatfield State Park to celebrate National Public Lands Day (NPLD), the nation's largest, single-day effort for public lands. Help us celebrate two decades of public land volunteerism by participating in the NPLD 20th anniversary celebration this year! During this half day stewardship project, volunteers will help restore part of the South Platte River Trail with new crusher fines. Thanks to volunteer efforts, this heavily used trail will be sustained for many more years to come. PARTNERS Chatfield State Park SPONSORS Xcel Energy Otten Johnson Robinson Neff+ Ragonetti PC EKS&H Lockheed Martin Norgren, Inc. REI Colorado State Parks Old Chicago Pizza & Pasta OTHER FUN STUFF VOC 30th Anniversary Project Latitude/Longitude: 39.54159, -105.061586 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 100 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 87 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 19 Total Volunteer Days: 106 Total Unique Volunteers: 106 Total Volunteer Hours: 679 Staff Hours: 40 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Successes and Challenges: Lessons Learned: Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Natural Resource Manager spoke at the beginning, and senior Park Ranger at the end to thank them and discuss importance of volunteers and how that trail is particularly popular and now safer for users from the work achieved today. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Freezing in the morning! More time would have been great - but I think it actually worked out for the best. The corporate groups felt like they achieved something and still had their afternoon/weekend to recover before starting the next work week! Crusher fine trail is not easy work! Crew Leader Feedback: Thanks for all your support Emily. It really helps to have great staff that can prep stuff at the warehouse.My hours include prep for baking, pasta salad and event: 19 hours. Rose Hi Emily. I thought that everything went well. The only confusion I saw at the end was which areas in the middle still needed more crusher fine. A lot of people seemed to think that the piles at each end in the trail. The big piles seemed to have been forgotten. Also it would have been helpful to portion out the landscape cloth in a couple of places. My hours are 14 hrs. Rosie Hey Emily, For the most part I think the project went well. I think it is always difficult with crusher fine projects to insure that the material gets placed in easily accessible spots so that volunteers don't get worn out or discouraged. I think that would probably be my only gripe because I feel like people tend to get tired of hauling material and then I jump in to help so I don't have as much "hands on" crew leading because I default to doing a job no one else wants to do. Anyway, it wasn't a big deal just figured I would throw in my two sense and if you have any advice on better ways to facilitate in the future I would love any suggestions. Great project! Nate Bond My hours were very minimal-from 6am to 3pm. I thought everything went smooth and everyone got enough to eat. Rose is an awesome! cook. Dede Williams I thought the project went well overall. But getting the crusher fines distributed was a real bottleneck. That was a long way to push a wheelbarrow, and each trip interrupted the trail work. I can see that the trail bed had to be prepped and the fabric laid down first, so it wasn't possible to stockpile the crusher fines at various points of the trail ahead of time. But I'm wondering if the Parks Department could put a Bobcat front-end loader on the job to carry loads of crusher fines down the trail once the work is underway. That would be faster and much easier on the volunteers. BobFindlay Description of Accidents/Incidents: None Description of Work Completed: Just over 100 volunteers from the corporate groups Norgren, EKS&H, Lockheed Martin, Otten Johnson, Aggregate Industries, and REI arrived at Chatfield State Park on September 28th to celebrate National Public Lands Day. These hard working volunteers helped repair over 1,000 feet of crusher fine trail along the South Platte River. Volunteers removed stubborn tree roots from the trail, made the trail wider and more equestrian friendly, and laid/compacted several inches of crusher fine along these stretch of very popular trail. The improved trail will allow users to better access the popular Gravel Ponds, be safer for horseback riders, and will simply make the trail more pleansant for busy days at the park. Financial and in-kind donations from each corporate group, as well as Excel Energy, contributed to the success of the project overall. After several hours of work, volunteers were able to enjoy delicious donated pizza from Old Chicago of Littleton.