Description
Start Date-End Date: 08/10/2022-08/10/2022
Land Manager Office: USFS - Clear Creek Ranger District
Land Manager Contact:
Funding Partner: Friends of Mt Evans & Lost Creek Wilderness
Programmatic Partner: Friends of Mt Evans & Lost Creek Wilderness
Summary: Remove invasive musk thistle on this Wednesday project.
Description: Where You'll Be:
Nestled in Arapaho National Forest and Pike National Forest just 30 miles west of Denver, the Mt. Evans Wilderness spans more than 74,000 acres and is home to bighorn sheep and the highest paved road in North America nearby.
Anyone that attends a VOC volunteer opportunity in August, September, and October will be entered in a drawing for the chance to win a $300 SCHEELS Gift Card. The more opportunities you attend, the more entries you will earn. Good luck!
What You'll Do:
This Wednesday project is a great way for volunteers ages 12+ to give back to the great outdoors. After hiking about 1.5 miles on the Captain Mountain Trail, you'll work with a group of approximately 20 volunteers to remove and treat musk thistle in an area above Pedee Creek. We will remove mature thistle blossoms and chemically treat the thistle plants; time permitting, we will also work to identify musk thistle rosettes and Canada thistle.
Why It Matters:
The Pedee Creek site is a large, sloping meadow (25+ acres) populated with beautiful mature ponderosa pines. Maintaining healthy native flora is essential for the local ecosystem and, left unchecked, the invasive thistles will take over the area and out-compete native plants to create a monoculture. Recently, we have seen the return of the native Parry's thistle. Since 2013, FOMELC has developed a highly respected integrated weed management program including Early Detection/Rapid Response, Manual and Chemical Treatment Methods, Prevention, and Education. The invasive weed program will greatly benefit from additional volunteers for control of musk thistle and Canada thistle--large infestations of musk thistle are especially problematic due to the species' capacity for explosive growth in favorable years. VOC is pleased to fortify FOMELC's ongoing efforts in addressing this issue.
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: 39.620094, -105.51
Additional Information: Single day project, bring your own lunch
To organize carpooling please visithttps://www.groupcarpool.com/t/8ia0un
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: No
Physical Difficulty: Moderate
High Altitude Project: Yes
Desired Number of Volunteers: 15
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 17
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 1
Total Volunteer Days: 18
Total Unique Volunteers: 18
Total Volunteer Hours: 144
Staff Hours: 3
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: (Combining summaries from Mt. Evans #2 and #3)
FOMELC adopter ran this project. Estimated 26 gross acres treated based on 50 gal of herbicide per acre, and they used 42 gallons. Estimates it was 0.84 to 1 net acre treated. On Wednesday, there was a lot more pulling than spraying.
From Alan:
The 2-day totals were the removal of 125 gallons of mature musk thistle blossoms(seeds) and spot-sprayed 42 gallons of selective herbicide. This was a giant step in returning this beautiful landscape back to a healthy natural state. We cannot rest as these thistle species are not close to being eradicated or controlled inthe meadow. We should be encouraged to learn from the effort and improve in the future.Although our numbers were down on the second day,the results were no less impressive. As results are compounding, we should consider the project as a whole.
On Mount Evans, jointly, VOC and FOMELC accomplished a tremendous amount. By the numbers: 125 gallonsof mature musk thistle blossoms were removed; 42 gallons of selective herbicide were applied by spot-spraying, and three new infestations of Canada thistle were identified. A comment heard after the first day was, "When I came here, all I saw was a field of flowers. Now, I see what it should be." On both days, several individuals from VOC asked to be sprayers. We supported that. On the other side, ayoung woman on day two (Sam), an enthusiastic veteran of treating purple loosestrife, told me of thistles, "I like pulling them; I like hearing the pop when theflowercomes off." She has a very personal investment in noxious weed control. I haven't been able to debrief my co-leader on Saturday in detail, but in short, hetoldme, "We had an awesome day."
We had a high no-show rate on Saturday - 8 out of 15. I sense that confusion about which day they were attending was at least some part of it. The demographics on Saturday were quite different than Wednesday. All were under 30 - recent college grads or of that age. The four young volunteers on my team were very enjoyable. They were engaged and had interesting questions about what they were seeing in the field. I wonder how they felt about working with three individuals whose average age is over 75. But those who log as many or more volunteer hours in the backcountry as about anyone else. One of these "youngsters" commented, "I never thought weed projects would be so hard. This was harder than trail projects."
On the lesspositiveside, we got off to a bumpy start onWednesday morning. We were uncoordinated, and I take full responsibility for that. Two individuals were working diligently on aspects of the project in my absence. Still, it took us a whileto get rolling. The week before the project I was north of the Arctic Circle. There were intermittent wifi links, but frankly, I wanted to be out of wifi range. I didn't get out of Arctic mode until that morning. I'm sorry that a few people may have been frustrated Wednesday morning. At the end of the day, there was a general sense of great accomplishment when the splashes of purple had been erased from the landscape.
Pedee Creek in 2022 was the largest weed project in terms of area and the number of volunteers we have everconducted. We learned a lot about how to work at scale and the specific challenges of Pedee Creek. I hope thepartnership can continue inthe future. It is the best hope I see to control large musk thistle infestations in these Wildernesses.
Update 1 week after the project: Alan visited the site.Many plants were old and shutting down and didn't respond to the herbicide like they would have earlier in their life-cycle. That might be an argument for doing the project a week earlier in the season.
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Details
| 12 and older |
