2017-Historical Cabin Trail Construction at Staunton State Park with Noble Energy

Start Date-End Date: 06/17/2017-06/17/2017 Land Manager Office: CPW - Staunton State Park Land Manager Contact: Zachary Taylor Funding Partner: Chevron (formerly Noble Energy) Programmatic Partner: Summary: Interested in Colorado's unique past? This trail project is for you! Description: About the Stewardship Site: Four years ago, Staunton State Park became the newest place to earn Colorado State Park designation. Frances Hornbrook Staunton donated the first 1,720-acre parcel of land in 1986, and subsequent acquisitions allowed Colorado Parks and Wildlife to create the park that exists today. With an area of 3,828 acres, Staunton boasts geologic features including soaring granite cliffs, unique soil composition and impressive water features, the backdrop for a range of recreational opportunities. About the Volunteer Experience: This project will take volunteers on a trip back in time to visit the Historical Cabin Trail that provides access to five historic cabins, including the original homestead home of the Staunton family. A new trail will be constructed to take users off an existing road bed into a meadow dotted with aspen trees. The work will consist mostly of basic trail construction, with the possibility of constructing one or two small rock features. About the Overall Impact: At the moment, there is not a designated trail that brings visitors to view the cabins. Once completed, the Historical Cabin Trail will create a loop that will tie in the Staunton Ranch Trail with the Chase Meadow Trail. There are plans to construct a parking lot near the new trail that will provide users with easier access to this section of the park. The new trail will also provide a route for crews working on the restoration and refurbishing of the cabins. Educational seminars and interpretive programs for park visitors and schools will be held at the cabins in the future. NOTE: MINORS ON VOC PROJECTS Youth under 16 must be accompanied by an adult 21 years or older on single-day projects. Latitude/Longitude: 39.509965, -105.394365 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy, Moderate High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 75 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 74 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 23 Total Volunteer Days: 97 Total Unique Volunteers: 97 Total Volunteer Hours: 970 Staff Hours: 19.5 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: 97 volunteers made it out on a beautiful Saturday morning to construct a new trail in Staunton, Colorado's newest State Park. Between the nice weather, beautiful location and historic significance of the site the project was very popular amongst volunteers. With a waitlist in Vocom it was a pleasant surprise to see very few cancellations or no shows the morning of the project. Anticipating a large volunteer group, the project team got started early Saturday morning, meeting at the park at 6AM to head in and get everything set up. On my drive into the park the CL manager, who was also going to stand in as a CL since we were short, called in to let me know he wasn't going to make it because he was ill. This was the first of a few last minute curveballs that came up throughout the morning which made the project a bit harder to manage but ultimately didn't hinder the day's success. Once we got breakfast and registration set up volunteers began arriving a little earlier than expected so I jumped in to directing parking until the park staff arrived to do so. The park manager assured me no one else would be using the dirt road we were set up on that day, but that also turned out not to be the case. Construction workers and another volunteer group needed to drive down past our project site at about the same time we were going to get everything started, so I had to coordinate to allow these vehicles to pass with little room established to do so. The second volunteer group agreed to wait until our crews had set off to the trail to drive through which was helpful. Despite the morning being slightly chaotic behind the scenes we were able to welcome all the volunteers with a smile and get them started on grabbing breakfast and packing up a lunch. While everyone was gearing up I met with the CLs to host a quick morning check in and assign trial sections. This was slightly more difficult than it should have been due to the fact that none of the trail specs were established by CPW when I was out on the site visit, and the tread hadn't been cut until the day before. CPW has a trail coordinator who is capable of providing all the info we need but wasn't able to attend the project or the site visit. I was under the impression that the park manager was standing in as the TA but that was not the case. I made the suggestion to Dan that we ensure the state can provide a TA for the site visit and project day or else we can offer to assign one to the project from VOC's team. Despite this set back the crew leaders were very flexible and felt prepared and capable to take on the project work. We were short a few crew leaders due to cancellations so we had CL mentees step up to lead groups to help out and they all did a phenomenal job. We were able to break up into 7 crews and head out to begin trail work around 8:30. Once groups got rolling the routine of the day set in and things seemed to run much smoother. We had a lot of very enthusiastic, hardworking volunteers and each group seemed be enjoying the days work. Groups broke for lunch around noon and ate on the trail. After lunch I noticed volunteers were feeling a bit tired and starting to slow down. We were able to still get a few good hours of work before volunteers slowly started trickling down the trail to call it a day around 3:00. We were able to restructure groups to keep volunteers working till 4:00 but our numbers were down to about 50 by the end of the day. We finished the day strong with our last few groups only about 300 feet from the trail connection we were trying to make. Ultimately the project was very successful and the park manager was very pleased with the work accomplished. To celebrate a job well done, Noble Energy hosted a happy hour at 3 margaritas after the project and many of the volunteers took them up on the free appetizers and drinks. Successes and Challenges: Successes; Volunteer turnout was great with very few no shows. We accomplished all but 300ft of the new trail we set out to construct Volunteers had positive morale Great weather Noble happy hour was a nice perk Challenges; TA needs to be provided by the state or VOC, and should be able to attend site visit and project day. Park manager was new to trail work/volunteer projects which made logistics hard to coordinate Short on CLs due to multiple cancellations Crew chefs Barb and Robyn didn't enjoy each other's work styles, created tension Lessons Learned: Don't assume the land manager will be the TA if listed as so, could be someone else from the agency Be thoughtful about group assignments based on group make up Schedule a second site visit if project work isn't clearly established on the first Special Notes: Stewardship Education: None Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: None Description of Work Completed: