2020-Salt Lick Trail Construction @ Silverthorne

Start Date-End Date: 07/10/2020-07/12/2020 Land Manager Office: USFS - Dillon Ranger District Land Manager Contact: Cindy Ebbert Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Friends of the Dillon Ranger District Summary: Join us for our third year on the Salt Lick Trail! Description: Project photo by Linda Engelbrecht. Read Before You Register! Need-to-Know Details: We greatly appreciate you volunteering your time and energy to care for Colorado's outdoor places during COVID-19. To help provide a fun and safe experience for all, there are a few temporary changes to be prepared for: You may sign up for one or all days of this project,though we encourage multi-day registration to limit the number of interactions and potential exposure. You may only register yourself.Every volunteer must sign our digital COVID-specific forms ahead of time to be able to attend. You must provide your own food and, if desired, overnight accommodations.VOC will not be providing campsites or meals at this time.Campsites will only be offered as needed to VOC Crew Leaders and Project Team members. You must bring a face mask and work gloves.Pleaseclick herefor our full packing list of required and recommended items. Please come prepared to use the bathroom outdoors.VOC is not providing portalets at this time and public restrooms may be unavailable. Pleaseclick herefor more information on how to "go" outside. Cancellation & Waitlists:Due to this year's limited number of projects and volunteer spots, we expect projects to fill quickly with waitlists. If you need to cancel, please emailoutreach@voc.orgas soon as possible so we can free your spot for another volunteer and have a full workforce. If you are waitlisted for multiple projects, please call us at 303-715-1010 ext. 130 and we can help you find an open project, if available. Where You'll Be: The Salt Lick Trail system is a front-country trail with easy access from the popular Summit County town of Silverthorne, and is used by up to 20,000 hikers, bikers and winter recreationists each year! The trail also provides access to the nearby Eagles Nest Wilderness, home to more than 133,000 acres of alpine lakes, deep valleys, and dense forests. What You'll Do: This is VOC's third year working on the Salt Lick Trail system. On this project, volunteers can enjoy the scenic views while working to establish a new connection between two existing trails in the Salt Lick Trail system, creating a new loop option for mountain bikers and other recreationists. Work will be moderate to difficult in nature, but no prior experience is required! Why It Matters: Bikes are not permitted in Wilderness areas, yet the only loop trail option currently enters and exits the Wilderness area, preventing cyclists from enjoying the full route. By helping to build the Salt Lick Trail, you will help create a new option for mountain bikers to complete a loop without entering the Wilderness. Furthermore, Silverthorne's economy heavily relies on trails and as such, your efforts will help support the local community while ensuring that the Salt Lick Trail system can remain sustainable and enjoyable for years to come. 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 125,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $25 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: 39.620357, -106.109851 Additional Information: We greatly appreciate you volunteering your time and energy to care for Colorado's outdoor places during COVID-19. To help provide a fun and safe experience for all, there are a few temporary changes to be prepared for: You must provide your own food and, if desired, overnight accommodations.VOC will not be providing campsites or meals at this time. You must bring a face mask and work gloves.Pleaseclick herefor our full packing list of required and recommended items. Please come prepared to use the bathroom outdoors.VOC is not providing portalets at this time and public restrooms may be unavailable. Pleaseclick herefor more information on how to "go" outside. Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Moderate, Difficult High Altitude Project: Yes Desired Number of Volunteers: 9 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 26 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 0 Total Volunteer Days: 26 Total Unique Volunteers: 19 Total Volunteer Hours: 240 Staff Hours: 46 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Considering this was VOC's first trail construction project implementing new COVID-19 protocols, this was a great success. Over the course of three days, volunteers finished 443 feet of new trail in the Salt Lick trail network, opening this new trail connection to hikers and bikers. The Dillon Ranger District cut the initial tread with a mini-excavator, so volunteers mainly worked on backfilling with mineral soil from borrow pits, dispersing debris left from the mini-excavator, and shaping the tread. The mini excavator also dug the borrow pits, which became quite large as the trail required a lot of backfill material, so they were difficult to fill at the end of the weekend. In addition to completing all 400 feet of trail prioritized by the Forest Service, volunteers also finished an additional 43-foot section, and filled and naturalized 4 large borrow pits. Successes and Challenges: Successes: - mask compliance - all work completed - crew leaders agreed they could easily manage larger crews if/when we increase group size - people appreciated the convenience of having their own tool kits Challenges: - Difficult and sometimes impractical to keep people working alone in their own sections--often ended up working together, but again did a great job keeping masks on - no carry-over registrants so everyone was brand new aside from the crew leaders. It really made it three single day projects in a row. Took more energy than I personally expected - Some tool swapping without sanitizing Lessons Learned: - Bagging the surveys in my opinion is an unnecessary time commitment and creates extra waste that will either be thrown away or needs to be sanitized afterward in order to use again. Process could be streamlined with a spreadsheet and questions administered verbally by PM during registration--I tested it with the crew leaders and they all agreed it didn't take too long to answer the questions. Also eliminates anyone needing to leave the line and then return to the line, etc etc. The only hang up is if we need to actually have the volunteer's signature on the health survey. Is that necessary? Or is it enough for the PM to confirm they collected the answers from each registrant? - Marking out 15-foot sections is a good idea in theory but ultimately, by day 3, volunteers were moving between sections frequently. People tend toward collaboration and it wasn't very feasible to keep them all confined to their own sections. It's a nice guideline to start out with, but it simply didn't stick. However, from what I saw and in talking to my crew leaders, we all agreed volunteers were very good about self-regulating when they put masks on/took masks off. When they passed people or were working near/with each other they kept masks on, and when they had enough space they took masks down. I only had to remind a couple volunteers once or twice to put their masks up, and other than those one or two "infractions" I thought everyone did a great job without requiring micromanagement. It's pretty easy to gauge distance, especially after going through registration with the cones and with the example of the pick mattock handle. I think it's reasonable, with a thorough start-of-day orientation talk, to trust volunteers to self-regulate wearing masks and maintaining distance without staying confined to marked out sections. - We should consider relaxing the carpooling restrictions between staff and volunteers--this project and I'm sure many others are going to be a lot more efficient if staff can shuttle volunteers such as CLs and the TM in VOC vehicles. - tool wipes may not be necessary. The bleach spray bottles were fairly effective and efficient and don't create as much waste (especially if you let them air dry instead of wiping down with paper towels). - can cache tools at the end of the day by sanitizing with the spray bottles, and then you don't have to take them all back to the tool truck. We kept the tools all in kits, which worked for such a small group, but it with more people it could get confusing if some kits are different than others (which was the case for us). Might be better with a bigger group to separate tools into like piles in order to get a count before hiking down each day, to ensure all tools are always accounted for. We didn't lose anything but it easily could have happened, especially with new volunteers who are unfamiliar with the tools. Some people didn't know what they had or what they had started with, but I was able to help them figure it out since the group was small enough that I could remember generally what had been cached on day 1. - 10 people a day was very manageable. Could definitely handle more if land managers are comfortable with larger group sizes. Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: