Description
Start Date-End Date: 09/17/2021-09/17/2021
Land Manager Office: City of Lakewood
Land Manager Contact: Andrew Sprafke
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner:
Summary: Improve a popular multi-use trail at William Frederick Hayden Park on this Friday project.
Description: Project photo by Jerry Severns
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:
Located on the west side of Lakewood, William Frederick Hayden Park is a popular spot for visitors with 2,400 acres. Once home to buffalo, this preserved area now provides a rich habitat for hawks, elk, rattlesnake, coyotes, mule deer, and even the occasional mountain lion. With some of the better beginner-to-intermediate mountain biking trails on the Front Range, this park also attracts 550,000 trail users each year.
What You'll Do:
Join us for this Friday project near Denver, where you'll help repair and strengthen the popular Box o' Rox Trail. This project is open to volunteers ages 14+, but come prepared to work hard: there are a number of important maintenance tasks to complete including establishing multiple new drainage structures, improving several corners, repairing small bridges and turnpikes, and restoring sections where the trail has braided from erosion and misuse.
Why It Matters:
The Box o' Rox Trail is a true community gem: built and restored over the years in cooperation with a variety of volunteer groups including the Colorado Mountain Bike Association and the International Mountain Bike Association, the Box o' Rox Trail is used extensively by mountain bikers, hikers, and trail runners. The trail has seen a steady increase in use over the past few years, and was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic which led to significant trail visitation and damage. Your efforts on this volunteer project will help restore this well-loved trail and keep it safe and sustainable for future use.
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: 39.704531, -105.191459
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: Difficult
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 50
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 46
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 1
Total Volunteer Days: 47
Total Unique Volunteers: 47
Total Volunteer Hours: 368
Staff Hours: 10
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: Six leads total. Alli and Dylan worked together as a team and Joel and Bob did as well. Bryan and Dave worked separately with smaller teams. From the top down a lot of work was completed, though a few of the drains were wanting due to the tough soil and difficulty for some folks to understand what the land managers wanted. The Expedia group took the top section of the trail with Alli and Dylan. They chose to work through lunch and wrap up at 2 so they could have a group lunch and happy hour after (this was not discussed previously). Their work and attitudes were complimented heavily by Drew, land manager. Their group alone accomplished over 10 drains. Just below them, Dave's crew removed one bridge, re-armored about 10 feet of another, and maintained three others. Their work was difficult and some of the folks there were having a hard time maintaining positive attitudes according to Drew and Lee, every time I personally checked in on them everyone seemed happy and said they were fine. Below them Brian's group worked to de-berm and create new drains. He had the smallest crew by far but they all seemed happy to be there and worked hard as a result. Bob and Joel took up the rear working on the new reroute and deconstruction of the old trail. The reroute took most of the day but they ended working on drains which Drew was less than impressed by. Crews (aside from the afore mentioned Expedia group) wrapped up around 3. Tools were reloaded and most folks were gone by 4.
Successes and Challenges: Successes:
Despite some questionable quality of some of the drains, the accomplishments of this day are vast
Most folks seemed really happy to be outside
No injuries or deserters
Challenges:
There were too many groups on this project for me to manage. They all wanted to work together but most of them had no idea who their coworkers even looked like. I was not made aware of their expectations prior to the work day and had not prepared properly to help them. Expedia, while being a happy hardworking crew, was the worst overall due to the fact that they had a huge group and didn't tell me they wanted to work together until most folks had already self selected into certain groups meaning there wasn't a crew lead free to take all of them. I ended up having to move folks in order to accommodate which led to far more confusion and some level of frustration from some other volunteers.
While Drew and Lee experienced backlash from Dave's crew I felt none of that tension. I even spent my lunch with them and they all seemed, overall, happy to be there. I don't know if folks were just not being honest with me due to my status as the coordinator and not the trail technical advisor or perhaps because I wasn't attempting to tell them what to do or even perhaps due to being female, but overall I did not have the same experience and therefore didn't know how to help.
Just an extremely hard trail to dig
Lessons Learned: More communication with groups before the project and limiting the project to two groups or much smaller groups. The volume of people, mixed with having two projects going on at the same time, mixed with three groups on top of regular public volunteers proved to be more stressful than I was prepared for nor do I think it's worth it. Large groups should either be willing to be split up or communicate beforehand that they would like to work together to make sure this is possible.
Really drill into crew leader's heads the expectations of the drains set by the land manager which was drawn out well in their trail notes as well as explained in their morning meeting along with many reminders as they checked on groups. Still, leads either chose to ignore or truly just did not understand these expectations which led to Saturday's group starting out fixing 5 of the drains done on this day.
Special Notes:
Stewardship Education:
Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Too many groups
Description of Accidents/Incidents:
Description of Work Completed:
Details
| 14 and older |
