Description
Start Date-End Date: 09/21/2022-09/21/2022
Land Manager Office: CPW - Cherry Creek State Park
Land Manager Contact: Jonathan Kingery
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner:
Summary: Help the native/non-invasive flora thrive! Join your colleague in this important task to improve the overall health of the forest.
Description: Where You'll Be:
Located just fifteen miles from downtown Denver, Cherry Creek State Park offers a natural prairie environment nestled around an 880-acre reservoir. The park is a popular destination for outdoor recreationists, nature lovers and those wanting to quickly get away from the hustle of the city. The park offers complete outdoor recreation facilities including camping, picnicking and facilities for group events.
What You'll Do:
Volunteers will spend the morning helping to remove Russian Olive, an invasive species, with hand tools such as bow saws and loppers. We will then use a wood chipper to break down branches and debris into mulch the park can use on trail tread and elsewhere.
Why It Matters:
Russian Olive is an extremely invasive species known to choke out native plants and prevent them from re-establishing. With more than 80 acres of Russian Olive in the park, your help is needed to remove these plants and further prevent their spread and competition with native species.
Latitude/Longitude: 39.6286675, 104.8439931
Additional Information:
Camping Available: No
Physical Difficulty: Moderate
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 20
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 15
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 0
Total Volunteer Days: 15
Total Unique Volunteers: 15
Total Volunteer Hours: 90
Staff Hours: 9
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: Volunteers were welcomed and explained the work for the day. This was the second project in this area working with Russian Olive. The main goal for this project was to chipped the existing piles of Russian olive branches and secondarily, felled the trees for the park staff to spray the stumps. Volunteers spent the first couple hour of the morning dragging the branches closer to the chipper and chipping the existing piles. Due to technical problems with the chipper and rain, we could not continue to chip the piles. Volunteers focused on continue trimming the base of the trees and cutting the branches in a way that would make it easier to feed them to the chipper. Volunteers also spent some time cleaning the road where we were working since bikers use it very frequently to recreate.
The first project in this area was with Xcel. Refer to that summary for more information. The treaded area during these 2 projects was 2.12 acres.
Successes and Challenges: Challenges:
The chipper stopped working before the end of the project
Successes:
Volunteers understood the importance of the work and enjoyed doing it.
Lessons Learned:
Special Notes:
Stewardship Education:
Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers:
Description of Accidents/Incidents:
Description of Work Completed:
Details
| 18 and older |
