2022-Bighorn Habitat Restoration @ Vail

Start Date-End Date: 07/30/2022-07/30/2022 Land Manager Office: USFS - Eagle-Holy Cross Ranger District Land Manager Contact: Jennifer Prusse Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Remove fencing to clear the way for bighorn rams near Vail. Description: Where You'll Be: For this single-day project, you'll camp at the Forest Service Minturn Compound, south of Minturn. Vail is home to the Gore Range Bighorn Sheep Herd, an iconic herd with bighorn that are often visible on the south-facing hillsides north of the town of Vail and East Vail during the winter. What You'll Do: Join a small group of volunteers as we spend a Saturday removing old, barbed wire fencing to clear the way for bighorn rams. Volunteers are required to stay for the duration of this project and will be rewarded with free campsites on Friday night, beautiful views, and free breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Why It Matters: Once considered necessary to keep wildlife and livestock safe from each other, wire fencing laces the Colorado high country. Management practices have changed considerably in the last few decades and, due to a better understanding of ecological interconnectivity plus aging fence materials, the Forest Service is working to remove hundreds of miles of old fence line. Your work will help clear the way for overwintering bighorn rams to access important foraging areas and escape terrain and help restore healthy ecosystems across the state. Check out this short documentary about the local bighorn sheep herd, "Home for the Wild". 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 128,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $26 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: 39.6428134, -106.3549345 Additional Information: To organize carpooling please visithttps://www.groupcarpool.com/t/o3nitg Please determine the following amongst yourselves: 1. Pick up location 2. When you leave 3. Vaccination status 4. Mask usage VOC suggests coordinating carpooling in the safest way possible and encouraging a mask friendly policy in your cars. If you have any issues finding a rider or a ride, please feel free to reach out to myself. Happy volunteering! Camping Available: Yes Physical Difficulty: Moderate High Altitude Project: Yes Desired Number of Volunteers: 13 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 12 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 1 Total Volunteer Days: 13 Total Unique Volunteers: 13 Total Volunteer Hours: 90 Staff Hours: 21 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: 15 volunteers joined us for a hot Saturday in Vail for a fence removal. We met at Vail Public Works in the morning, with a light breakfast of bagels and yogurt, coffee. Jen, her boss Derek, and Ethan from CPW joined us. Hannah gave a radio to each crew, one led by Derek, one by Ethan. We began working on the fence just East of the Public Works office (right above I70). Work started smoothly, volunteers progressed up the hill, and a few of us carried the barbed wire and fence wire down the the parking all day. Lunch arrived around 11:30, and everyone went to the Vail Public Works cafeteria to eat. VOC pitched membership and did the appreciate raffle over lunch. As we wrapped up lunch around 12:30pm, a light shower began, which greatly helped motivation and energy for the afternoon work because it instantly cooled everyone off. Luckily, the storms didn't turn into anything dangerous. Most of the crew returned to finish removing the sections of fence, and a few volunteers stayed back to help move the wire into the recycling bins. The second half of the day we fire-lined the wire down to the side of the highway and CPW said they would pick it up next week.Luckily, with the afternoon showers, the expected afternoon heat stayed away, and we ended up working until around 3/3:15pm, returning to the cars by 3:30/4pm. Camping was offered Friday night at the Minturn forest service compound. This was an OK camp spot, but a few things that make it very unappealing. 1) noise from the main road Highway 24 right next to the campsite. Cars are driving on it all night between Minturn and Red Cliff. there's not much tree coverage or anything to absorb the noise. 2) smell from the llamas. While cute, it had just rained Friday afternoon so the barnyard smell was fairly strong. 3) Forest service staff were partying and making a lot of noise into the night, stopping around 11pm. One volunteer left instead of staying the night at the campsite because of how annoying all these things were for them. On the bright side, Jen said there wouldn't be a bathroom, so Hannah packed wag bags, and then there was a porti-potty when we arrived. Many pre-planning challenges with Jen. Jen changed the location, timeframe, and then, the week of the project Jen emailed that we might wrap up by 11:30am (so essentially a 3.5 hour, half-day project) concerned about the heat and the amount of work (didn't expect it to take all day). In total, we removed 0.34 miles of fence - equal to 54 acres of bighorn sheep habitat enhancement. Successes and Challenges: Successes Town of Vail bought lunch for volunteers, however, did not have a person to pick it up. Luckily, a local volunteer was willing to do it since he broke some toes right before the project and couldn't participate. Lunch in the cafeteria was a godsend. The aircon revived everyone, had great energy to finish the day. For the second half of the day, the second location for bringing wire at the end of the day was helpful instead of having to hike it back all the way to the start. Amazing team work! Really great group of volunteers, with great energy and willing to work and help Challenges Major challenge working with Jen from the Forest Service. Every communication with her resulted in a change of scope, timeframe, location, etc.. The project originally set for 2 full days in the backcountry in Gypsum turned into a one day in Vail, into a half day. Didn't pack loppers, but they would have been really helpful because there was a lot of overgrown vegetation, Jen left to get some mid-morning from the Forest Service office Camping spot was noisy - the main road is right next to it, and the forest service staff were partying until 11pm, yelling (not angry, but happy drunk yelling) and talking really loudly. Would not recommend this camp site in the future. Lessons Learned: Make standard tool lists for various types of projects like Fence removal projects will probably always use wire cutters, fencing pliers, buckets, and loppers Special Notes: Jen seems to want to work with VOC again next year. I recommend that we give her a more thorough explanation about what we expect from partners and what a successful VOC project looks like before accepting another application from her. This could include a description of what goes into planning a VOC project on our end and why last minute changes are challenging. Also an idea of what other VOC partners do to make it a specific day for vols. Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: