2016-Dixon Trail Construction at Cheyenne Mountain State Park

Start Date-End Date: 06/04/2016-06/05/2016 Land Manager Office: CPW - Cheyenne Mountain State Park Land Manager Contact: Mitch Martin Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Help build a highly anticipated trail in an idyllic location with panoramic scenery. Description: About the Stewardship Site You don't have to go far to get away and do some good for Colorado. Cheyenne Mountain State Park, just south of Colorado Springs, is nestled in the beautiful landscape that inspired the song, "America the Beautiful." Marvel at the towering mountains above and the Colorado Springs skyline below, while exploring 20 miles of top-notch hiking and biking trails as well as a diverse population of wildlife. About the Volunteer Experience With the influx of visitors to Cheyenne Mountain State Park, it's important to minimize disturbances to the park's unique ecology. Volunteers will continue last year's efforts constructing the new Dixon Trail, which will allow visitors to access some of the most spectacular places in the park while preserving habitat. To reach the project worksite on the far western edge of the park, a strenuous 1-mile hike is required. Despite its proximity to Colorado Springs, this project will be a remote experience! Free camping and meals prepared by our volunteer chefs will be provided. About the Overall Impact A trail to the top of Cheyenne Mountain has long been a dream of outdoors enthusiasts. This project will be a multi-year effort to establish a new sustainable route to the summit, and though it remains a long journey, these efforts will give important shape to the highly anticipated Dixon Trail. Latitude/Longitude: 38.69810104370117, -104.85050201416015 Additional Information: Camping Available: Yes Physical Difficulty: Difficult High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 60 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 112 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 3 Total Volunteer Days: 115 Total Unique Volunteers: 68 Total Volunteer Hours: 1243 Staff Hours: 66.75 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Around 56 volunteers on each day showed up to work on the Dixon Trail project. Likely around 15-20 people arrived on Friday night before the project to camp, but many of the volunteers were local and opted to arrive the day of. This also meant that the number of volunteers that stayed to camp overnight was around 20-30 as many opted to go home and return again on Sunday. Good effort was made to track how many volunteers wouldn't return after Saturday, but with newcomers joining on Sunday the numbers stayed about the same day to day. The campground was great for our group, although the walk-in campsites nearby weren't reserved for us, which a few volunteers commented on due to their desire to camp in those spaces and use the parking spots. Over the two days volunteers stayed with their crew and worked on specific sections of the trail. Work priorities were focused on completing structures (climbing turns, switchbacks, rock retaining walls, etc.), with secondary efforts going towards constructing full bench trail in between the turns. Volunteers were able to construct around 1,700 feet of new trail, five climbing turns, and at least two rock walls measuring around 30 feet. While it was warm and sunny both days, the project site was largely in shade and didn't pose a major challenge to volunteers. The project seemed to be perfectly timed seasonally, as it was neither too wet or too hot for the project work. Crew chefs and tool managers worked efficiently and used the water spigots and electrical outlets of a nearby RV camping site. All meals were on time and delicious, and there was never a lack of food or overabundance. Over the weekend there were multiple deer sightings and two bear sightings. One bear sighting occured during the ride up on the shuttle, the other occuring on Sunday while working on the trail. If any attempt is made to camp farther up the mountain on future projects, this should be noted when storing food and addressing volunteers. The views from the trail are incredible! Successes and Challenges: Successes: The scheduling for the day worked well. Although I don't think it would be possible to push the start or end times back anymore, we were still able to get at least 5.5 hours of project work on Saturday and 4.5-5 hours on Sunday. The structures built were very well done, and Crew Leaders were generally able to operate independently with occasional visits from TA Paul Mead. Interface with Jack Buscher and volunteers from the park was straightforward and well communicated. Despite challenging logistics requiring tool staging, shuttling to and from the trailhead, long hikes in and use of a non-obvious trail to access the worksite, there were no major issues and the project ran smoothly. Many volunteers commented on how well organized the project was from start to finish. Challenges: We were unable to secure horse packing to the worksite, therefore tools were only able to be staged by ATV partway up the trail. This required volunteers to carry tools an additional .75 miles to reach the actual worksite. In the future more effort should be made, and earlier, by both VOC and the partner to secure a staging option that brings the tools closer to the actual work site. On Saturday it was communicated by park staff to VOC that only one shuttle out of two would be available on Sunday. This meant that only half of the crews could reach the access point at a time, with a 30 minute wait on either end of the day for the second wave of crews. Making sure to secure adequate transportation to and from the access point will reduce idle time spent waiting for transportation. Due to a lack of Crew Leaders, we were forced to have a Tool Manager, Paul Smith, work as a CL on Saturday, and then hand over leadership to a CL who could only make it on Sunday, John Etzel. Although the work and leadership of both CLs was fantastic, and the finished climbing turn was well constructed, this arrangement created opportunity for confusion and frustration on the part of volunteers and the CL in trying to transition leadership. Lessons Learned: The hike in, while substantial, didn't seem to deter volunteers or cause them to fatigue during the day. Besides two outlier volunteers, everyone was able to hike up and down the mountain together with their crews. Volunteers seemed to be able to handle both the hike (around 2 miles each way) and the work for the day without much difficulty. Logistics surrounding tool staging and extraction should be more firmly laid on in advance to attempt to create an easy and efficient process. Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Park Ranger Jason spoke to the group at dinner about the history of the trail and thanked volunteers. It would have been nice to get a little bit more overview of the park, it's facilities, and the history of the area. This was challenging to request as the Project Manager was never quite sure who from the park would participate in various tasks. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: We were unable to have dedicated emergency personell on site. Although a Park Ranger trained as an EMT was the point person, the remote nature of the worksite meant that any major injury would require significant extraction times. For this project moving forward, this requirement from VOC should be strictly enforced. Risk will only increase as the project moves farther and farther from the road, and as the project work continues to progress up steeper slopes with more rock work requirements. Description of Accidents/Incidents: There was one incident in which a rock became out of control of the volunteers moving it. This resulted in a volunteer recieving scrapes and bruises as he was in the path of the rock. After discussing the incident with a few witnesses and the volunteer in question, I don't believe there was anything out of the ordinary being done here. The rock, according to witnesses, broke while being flipped which caused the two volunteers moving it to lose control. Despite the fact that the volunteer only recieved scrapes and bruises, the result could have been worse. However, the volunteer's Crew Leader acted appropriately in sending the volunteer to the medical point person, who followed proper procedure in treating the wounds and documenting the incident. An incident report was filled out by the Project Manager, the medical point person, and the patient and is on file in the I-Drive. Description of Work Completed: