2021-Trail and Fire Restoration @ Elephant Butte #2

Start Date-End Date: 09/26/2021-09/26/2021 Land Manager Office: City and County of Denver - Parks and Recreation Land Manager Contact: Bob Finch Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Celebrate National Public Lands Day by helping reopen trail access to Elephant Butte after the 2020 wildfire. Description: 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 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. VOC will not be providing meals at this time. You must bring a face mask and work gloves. Please click here for our full packing list of required and recommended items. All volunteers must keep a mask within reach at all times.We will ask you to wear a mask when working closely together (within arm's reach) on a task, such as moving a large rock. If you are not vaccinated,we encourage you to reconsider your participation at this time due to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. People who are unvaccinated are more at risk of serious illness, hospitalization, and death. If you choose to volunteer while unvaccinated, you must wear a mask for the duration of the project. 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 email outreach@voc.org as 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. 116 and we can help you find an open project, if available. Where You'll Be: Elephant Butte is a great little peak in Jefferson County, located in a parcel of land belonging to Denver Mountain Parks but accessed through JeffCo's popular Three Sisters Park. A short drive from the Denver Metro area, hikers and nature enthusiasts can summit this rocky perch for views of the Evans Group, including Rosalie, Epaulet, Evans, and Spalding. What You'll Do: The 2020 wildfires saw over 1,000 homes evacuated due to the Elephant Butte Fire. Now, recovery work is under way! Celebrate National Public Lands Day on this Sunday project, where you'll work to help reopen the summit trail in cooperation with Jefferson County Open Space. The project is open to volunteers ages 14+ and will include a variety of tasks from basic trail maintenance to re-seeding, installing erosion control barriers, mulching, and debris removal. Why It Matters: The Elephant Butte Fire burned more than 50 acres in mid-July 2020 before it could be contained. The steep, rocky terrain made it difficult to fight the fire and it caused significant damage, including the temporary closures of the popular Alderfer/Three Sisters Park and Elk Meadow open spaces. It will take the help of the community and volunteers to restore this popular trail. 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: 39.638323, -105.355331 Additional Information: 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 meals or campsites at this time. You must bring work gloves.Pleaseclick herefor our full packing list of required and recommended items. If you are fully vaccinated,you may work without a mask. If you are not yet fully vaccinated or if you prefer to wear a mask for any reason, please continue to wear a mask on VOC projects. We will have spare masks available if needed. Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Moderate High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 35 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 18 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 5 Total Volunteer Days: 23 Total Unique Volunteers: 23 Total Volunteer Hours: 160 Staff Hours: 25.5 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: Volunteers on Day 1 of this back-to-back day project worked efficiently and energetically all day Saturday. They were so effective the crews completed the entire reroute called for in the scope of work--about 950 feet of new trail. Sunday crews worked on some areas of light touch up on the newly constructed trail but for the most part volunteers tackled maintenance issues on the existing trail in order to open the whole route to hikers by the end of the day. Volunteers addressed an additional 800 feet of trail and cleared 23 drains. They also finished installing a large rock step on the reroute, which Saturday crews had to abandon due to an active hornet's nest. Two crews hiked all the way to the summit of Elephant Butte, clearing drains along the way. By the end of the day, Denver Parks staff were able to remove the fence barrier and officially open the Elephant Butte Trail. Successes and Challenges: Success: - cutting in the entire length of the reroute on day 1 - opening the trail by the end of the weekend - completing all back up tasks in addition to the primary scope of work Challenges: - Sunday was largely disorganized and directionless. Since we essentially completed the project in one day, crew leaders were unsure what to do on Sunday and DMP staff had not lined out enough work or specific instructions to keep people busy and motivated. Despite that, Bob Finch (DMP) seemed hesitant to let people leave early and kept sending people further up the trail with little oversight. Project got split into two groups, one at the bottom of the trail and one at the top, and it was impossible to keep an eye on everyone, especially after the radios died. Crew Leaders remained game and patient, but expressed misgivings about the lack of direction or clearly expressed objectives Lessons Learned: Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Eric Suter got stung by hornet in three spots when moving a rock near a nest on Saturday. He took ibuprophin and opted to stay on the project since the bites were not swelling significantly. We moved the crew away from the hornet's nest for the remainder of the day and sprayed it the next morning. Description of Work Completed: