Description
Start Date-End Date: 06/11/2016-06/11/2016
Land Manager Office: City and County of Denver - Parks and Recreation
Land Manager Contact: Bob Finch
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner:
Summary: Restore a popular trail in Evergreen that offers breathtaking views.
Description: About the Stewardship Site
O'Fallon Mountain Park, part of the Denver Mountain Park network, provides Front Range residents with superb hiking opportunities and a fresh-air fix only 25 minutes from Denver. The area's rolling hills, flower-filled meadows, pungent ponderosa pines, and great views reward users with a gorgeous, easy mountain escape from city life. Access to the worksite will require a 1-mile hike.
About the Volunteer Experience
VOC returns to O'Fallon Park's West Ridge Trail in 2016. Volunteers will help reroute and restore an overused trail that has fallen into disrepair. Work will consist of basic new trail construction, in addition to trail closure and restoration tasks. This project can accommodate a large group of volunteers, and is great for corporate, school, and community groups! It is also a perfect fit for people ages 12 and up who are new to the trail building scene. To keep volunteers happy and energized throughout the day, light breakfast fare and lunch will be provided.
About the Overall Impact
The reroute will result in a sustainable trail that can be safely enjoyed by users for generations to come, as well as reduce erosion and its negative effects on the surrounding habitat.
Latitude/Longitude: 39.655085, -105.288548
Additional Information:
Camping Available: No
Physical Difficulty: Easy, Moderate
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 100
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 93
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 36
Total Volunteer Days: 128
Total Unique Volunteers: 129
Total Volunteer Hours: 1031
Staff Hours: 20
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: Basking in the radiant warmth of the early morning sun, 117 volunteers mingled with each other, sipped hot coffee, and prepared their lunches from the massive spread of delicious food set out by the Crew Chefs. Rose Beyer had baked cookies and bread at her home for everyone to enjoy. I started the day off with a crowd team building activity that involved everyone doing the ballpark wave, I figured with the numbers we had that I could pull it off...and we did.
Once the Crew Leaders were established and given teams made up of 10-15 people everyone began the hike up to the work site. Fortunately we were able to have all of the tools shuttled up to the actual project site so volunteers did not have to carry a tool up the trail for almost 1 mile. Once we arrived at the tool drop all of the Crews broke out and did there tool and safety talk. We began working around 9am and the climate on the western facing slope that we were working on was cool and shaded, perfect conditions for working and everyone seemed content.
The work went well, it all consisted of basic tread and the hillside was not very steep. We had one crew begin the construction of a rock wall that spanned about 30 feet in length and 4 feet high when it was all said and done. We had a curious bear come by one of the groups, he paid them no mind and sauntered away in search of food somewhere else. Everyone had lunch on the trail at their worksites. Once lunch was over we went back to work, the sun had now made its way over the hillside and was hitting us with full force. Some groups were fortunate and were able to work in Ponderosa or Douglas Fir shade, but many people felt the direct intensity of the sun. We made an executive decision to have a hard stop at 2:30pm and have everyone start heading out with tools. The decision was the right one, people were getting weary from the heat and work so it was a sensible call. We reached the 2700' marker on the trail, which was 300' more than Bob Finch had imagined we would finish. Tools were packed up and loaded into the pickup trucks with the help from the volunteers and then the tools were repacked into the truck at the bottom of the hike in trail.
Refreshments were enjoyed at the staging area, I would say roughly half of the volunteers partook in the food and comradery. A scout troop of about 25 people had beat us to the lemonade and make short work of it. We raffled off a few items which were well recieved and had one volunteer jump at the chance to give $100 to become a VOC member.
Successes and Challenges: We finished 2700' of basic tread and constructed roughly 150 square feet of stone wall in three different areas. We began the closure of 600' of the old existing trail and moved an 80' section of fencing.
We engaged a wide variety of individuals on this project as we had a scout troop come out and work with us that consisted of refugees from areas liek Nepal, India, Pakistan, & Africa. We had several school groups, 3 different corporate groups, and many returning as well as new volunteers. The homemade cookies and bread were a nice touch.
The parking lot that we staged out registration in was a bit small and we anticipated the arrival of a Ranger from DMP to assist with giving people instructions on where to park. The ranger was reassigned to another task so people had a bit of a fiasco parking. The loss of the ranger also affected our tool shuttling operation as he was needed as the third truck to shuttle equipment. We manage with two.
Lessons Learned: Communication with other Project Staff from VOC when we have more than one project on a given weekend is very important. We only had 4 radios available, we had to hunt for extra gloves, and the food supplies were pillaged.
Communicate.
Special Notes:
Stewardship Education:
Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: The lemonade at the end of the day was pillaged by the early arriving volunteers. There was none left for the last half of people who stayed to work longer.
Need more Lemonade or a smaller amount should be given out.
Description of Accidents/Incidents: We had a black bear appear in the morning and then he appeared later in the day. No disturbance to the volunteers.
Description of Work Completed:
Details
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