2019-National Trails Day: Trail Construction @ Gateway Mesa Open Space (Legacy Trail)

Start Date-End Date: 06/01/2019-06/01/2019 Land Manager Office: Town of Castle Rock Parks & Recreation Department Land Manager Contact: Barbara Spagnuolo Funding Partner: Castle Rock Service Center, Town of Programmatic Partner: Summary: Build a new hiking loop near Castle Rock on this large project for volunteers ages 14+. Description: Where You'll Be: Nestled between the towns of Castle Rock and Franktown, the Gateway Mesa Open Space is an easily accessible gem on the Front Range offering scenic overlooks, stunning views of the Rocky Mountains, and 275 acres of diverse terrain ranging from open scrub brush to dense mixed pine and steep cliffs. What You'll Do: Celebrate National Trails Day by breaking ground on a new, two-mile section of trail with dozens of volunteers ages 14+! This is the first of three projects at Gateway Mesa Open Space this year and you'll spend the day among conifer forest, ferns, mosses, and interesting rock formations as you build the natural-surface trail and potentially construct stone steps and small drainage crossings. Breakfast and lunch will be provided by our volunteer Crew Chefs. Save the date for August 24 and October 5, when VOC will be back at Gateway Mesa Open Space to continue building the trail. Why It Matters: The current loop system in Gateway Mesa Open Space is 1.6 miles and travels around the flat, exposed mesa through open grassland. The trail you help build will create a secondary, hikers-only loop extension that will provide access to a forested environment completely different from the rest of the park. Need-to-Know Details: Minors under 16 must be accompanied by an adult 21 years or olderon single-day projects. VOC will provide all equipment including tools and work gloves. Cancellation:Our partners rely on VOC volunteers to accomplish critical stewardship needs, and our projects often have wait lists. If you need to cancel, pleasecontact Emily Schaeferat 303-715-1010 ext. 116 as soon as possible so we can free your spot for another volunteer and have a full workforce. About Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) is the state's oldest, largest, and leading outdoor stewardship nonprofit organization. Founded in 1984 to motivate and enable people to become active stewards of Colorado's natural resources, VOC has engaged nearly 120,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $24 million. Through award-winning youth and volunteer programs, leadership training, capacity-building programs, and collaborative efforts with nonprofits and land management agencies, VOC is an invaluable resource in Colorado, especially as our outdoor stewardship needs are approaching near-crisis levels. For more information, visit www.voc.org or call 303-715-1010. Latitude/Longitude: 39.391751, -104.800228 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy, Moderate, Difficult High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 100 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 98 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 8 Total Volunteer Days: 105 Total Unique Volunteers: 106 Total Volunteer Hours: 834 Staff Hours: 24 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: On National Trails Day 2019, VOC partnered with the Town of Castle Rock Parks and Recreation Department to break ground on a new loop trail - Legacy Loop - at Gateway Mesa Open Space. The VOC project team and Town staff arrived on site just before 6:00AM to begin setting up a breakfast station and to stage the tools that would be required for VOC's largest single-day project of the season. Volunteers parked nearby at Rock Ridge Elementary School and at 7:00AM a Town shuttle trolley dropped off the first set of eager volunteers at the trail head, where they were welcomed by expansive views of the Rocky Mountains extending from Pikes Peak in the South to Longs Peak in the North. By 8:00 more than 80 volunteers had arrived, and shortly afterwards VOC project staff member Alex Williams welcomed volunteers and oriented them to the site and the logistics of the work. Barbara Spagnuolo and Rich Havel of the Parks and Recreation Department spoke about the history of the site and the need for a new trail, and Michael Linde of the Castle Rock Parks and Trails foundation spoke of the grant that made the project possible. Technical Advisors Mike Mattice and Wes Go briefed 8 Certified Crew Leaders and 3 Crew Leader Mentees on the work plan, and by 8:30 all 90 volunteers were paired up with a crew leader to get their safety and tool talks. Crews set out to their first sections just before 9:00AM and began constructing a new 24-inch wide pedestrian-only trail. The trail drops from the dry, flat mesa top through dense mixed mature spruce, fir, and Ponderosa pine, crossing several drainages, plunge pool wetlands, steep open scrub-covered slopes and interesting rock formations with ferns and mosses. Several sections required rock steps, switchbacks, and climbing turns. Others required significant duff removal on steep cross-slopes. Crews worked until about 11:30AM when they broke for lunch. Work resumed at noon and continued until a menacing thunderstorm ended things around 2:30PM. By the end of the day, more than 1500 feet of new trail had been constructed, along with 14 rock steps, 4 water diversions, 2 rock retaining walls, and one climbing turn. The storm forced some crews to abandon their sections before finishing but volunteers at the next 3 projects at this site will be able to pick up where they left off. Castle Rock staff were pleased with the quality and amount of work accomplished and look forward to future collaborations with VOC. Volunteers were rewarded with raffle give-away items donated by the Town of Castle Rock, Topo Designs, Feral Mountain Co., and Chick-fil-A. Starbucks Coffee donated a large cambro of coffee. Several groups were in attendance from RJH Consultants, Meadows Hiking Group, Bank of America, and EF. Successes and Challenges: Successes: This large, logistically complicated project required a lot of planning and collaboration. Staff from the Town of Castle Rock were organized and enthusiastic. They were highly engaged months in advance and were the last ones to leave the Open Space after wrapping up on the project day. They are an excellent partner without whom the project would have suffered considerably. VOC volunteer leaders, as always, were vital to project success. We had exactly the right tools and the right amount of food. Gordon Carroth, as project team lead, helped shepherd people throughout planning and was key to the smooth execution of the project. The technical advisers were particularly invaluable, spending close to 30 hours each finalizing the alignment and preparing construction notes. Challenges: The trail itself was the biggest challenge. Despite a seemingly straightforward alignment it turned out to be a very technically challenging trail to build. On top of this, there were several minor safety issues to consider including dense scrub oak, poison ivy, ticks, and a steep, narrow corridor. The project was advertised as easy, moderate, and difficult but the work itself ranged from moderate to extremely difficult. Two crews spent the entire day working on 30 ft sections of trail that required rock work where rocks were not in abundance; these sections were left incomplete. Lessons Learned: Membership pitches are more challenging on trail projects where volunteers have lunch along the trail with their crew leaders. As such, the VOC staff member was only able to speak with about 20% of the total participants about donating to VOC. However, nearly half of those who heard this pitch became members, and this may be due to the presence of some great raffle items. The Topo Designs backpack was particularly popular with younger volunteers. During set-up, we created separate buckets for each of the raffle items and volunteers were instructed to place their ticket in the one they wanted most. Volunteers who became VOC members were given an additional 5 raffle tickets to distribute as they wished, and this appears to have been a big motivator. The Technical advisers proposed a few lessons learned as well: the VOC Project Manager should be present while the TA's write construction notes to go over non-construction questions. TA's should resist the urge to help individual volunteers at challenging sections and instead inform the Crew Leaders of how to deal with the challenges. If any adverse weather is expected, the project manager should go over evacuation procedures with all crew leaders during the morning debrief. Special Notes: The Castle Rock Parks and Trails Foundation provided the grant that made this project possible. The director of Castle Rock's Parks and Recreation Department was in attendance and is a big supporter of volunteer events like this. Stewardship Education: NA. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: NA Description of Accidents/Incidents: NA Description of Work Completed: - 1500 ft. of new trail constructed - 14 rock steps installed - 4 drains constructed - 2 retaining walls installed at one switchback - 1 climbing turn constructed