2020-Stratton Springs Path Improvements @ Stratton Open Space

Start Date-End Date: 10/03/2020-10/04/2020 Land Manager Office: City of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Service Land Manager Contact: David Deitemeyer Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Improve access to this popular spot in Colorado Springs. Description: Photo courtesy of Wesley Trimble, American Hiking Society 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. 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: Just outside of North Cheyenne Canyon near Colorado Springs, Stratton Open Space is visited by an estimated 150,000 people each year to enjoy the area's many hiking and biking trails, which travel through five distinct ecosystems. The open space also connects users to the Pikes Peak Greenway and a trail network in Bear Creek Regional Park. What You'll Do: Spend a Saturday and/or Sunday in Colorado Springs to reroute a significant access trail to Stratton Open Space. Over the weekend, you'll help close the old route and replace it with a new, more sustainable trail. Those who enjoy more technical tasks may have the opportunity to construct small timber pedestrian bridges, install rock steps, and build erosion control structures such as check dams. Why It Matters: Stratton Open Space is a local favorite and the trail you help build will serve as an integral access point for residents looking to enjoy Stratton Open Space and its trail connections to North Cheyenne Caon, the Pike National Forest, Bear Creek Regional Park, and the Pikes Peak Greenway. By building a more sustainable route, your efforts will help protect the beauty and natural resources of this area 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: 38.795403, -104.857463 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 High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 18 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 33 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 0 Total Volunteer Days: 32 Total Unique Volunteers: 23 Total Volunteer Hours: 278 Staff Hours: 0 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: 27 individual volunteers, many local to Colorado Springs with a few traveling from Denver and Boulder, gathered for this 2-day project at Stratton Open Space. They worked in difficult terrain, thick with scrub oak and pine trees, to cut new trail for a reroute to improve the Stratton Springs Path. As it currently exists, the Springs Path follows a dry creek bed and thus does not drain well and becomes icy in the winter. The reroute takes the trail up the hill and offers a better cross slope for sheeting water off the trail. Some sections of trail were quite steep and volunteers cut through thick pine roots to create the tread. They also installed an impressive 13 rock steps, despite only being able to move rocks with one or two people at a time in order to observe social distancing restrictions. A skilled pair of two experienced volunteers installed two timber bridges, each 8 feet long, on Saturday. While we did not finish cutting the tread for all 600 feet of the reroute, we got very close! Volunteers completed about 500 feet of trail, with an additional 50 feet roughed in, for a total of 550 feet of trail constructed. Successes and Challenges: Successes: - two bridges installed and a fair bit of difficult trail cut - a surprising amount of rock work completed while still maintaining COVID-safe protocols Challenges: - People are getting tired of COVID and needed lots of reminders about keeping masks on. When crew leaders encourage mask wearing, it takes a huge burden off the project manager, but that benefit can work in the other direction too. If a crew leader is forgetful or lax, it creates a lot more work for the project manager. Joel, while a great volunteer and lovely person, did not enforce COVID protocols or do much to oversee his crew on Saturday at all. I ended up just giving him two other people to work with on Sunday, which made the crews for the other two leaders larger, but it was worth it from a management perspective. Lessons Learned: Joel prefers rock work and does well with small, specific projects. He does not do well managing whole crews or people new to building trail. He becomes hyper focused on singular tasks and loses track of his people--every time I checked in on him he was doing something on his own while his crew members stood by. That or, if they asked him for something to do, he would instruct them briefly but never check back in to make sure they understood, or he would get sidetracked and suddenly give them something else to do when they hadn't finished the first thing. I also had a terrible time reminding him to wear a mask, and he certainly didn't enforce the mask policy with his crew. I know we've discussed asking him to take a crew leader refresher in order to gently/tactfully try to improve his soft skills, but I just don't think he's going to get the message. I've had the most success with him when I pair him with just one or two other people, preferably other experienced volunteers who don't really need leadership. He builds fantastic structures and has a great eye for rock steps and retaining walls, but he really should not crew lead. Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: