This American Hiking Society Volunteer Vacation was for Colorado's Pike National Forest northwest of Colorado Springs. The Pike and San Isabel National Forests along with Comanche National Grasslands cover nearly three million acres from the prairies of western Kansas to some of Colorado's highest mountain peaks along the Continental Divide, including Pikes Peak and nearly half of Colorado's 14,000+ foot tall peaks.
We camped in a large, lovely meadow at 8500+ feet altitude...
...where Ranger Glenn and his forest service crew had set up their spacious 20' by 20' work tent as our group space...
Our first assignment was maintenance on a section of the Brookside AG Trail, followed by construction of a new, switchbacking section of the trail. Here Frank and Ranger Glenn dig out large rocks from the trail tread. A good deal of our work involved removing such rocks and gave new awareness as to why these are called the Rocky Mountains! Most days, Ranger Glenn was there working alongside us.
Ranger Glenn explains the day's work to (l to r) Wes, Brenda, "G", and Barb. Wes is Communications and Creative Director for American Hiking Society and he is as good with trail tools as he is with his cameras! On past trips, I've also worked with the volunteer vacations director and one of the financial directors of AHS, and it was wonderful to know that the people who run AHS enjoy getting out of the office and joining a work crew on occasion.
Here Barb and "G" lop off tree limbs that impinge the travel of pack animals. We had to create a trail corridor that was 6 feet wide and 10 feet high so horseback riders and pack animals had clearance...
The beauty of the trail and the forest are exemplified in this photo of a section of the finished trail...
Rain and melting snow need places to run off the trail, so we install either a "water bar" or a "drainage dip," both of which direct water off the trail (if you look closely at the area in the shade you'll see the water exits the trail on the right via the dug out earth.)
These water bars eventually need to be cleaned out since dirt, twigs, leaves, and other detritus carried by the water can clog the drainage structure. Here I'm cleaning out one of these water bars.
Frank removing a tree using the small hand saw...
An interesting side story: Our two oldest volunteers are also avid cyclists. Our leader, Phil (below, on the right), who is 80, bikes thousands of miles a year on Colorado Springs' hilly terrain. This is his 13th time acting as crew leader. Chuck, who is 76, bikes his fat tire mountain bike 2000+ miles a year on the smaller, glaciated hills on the Illinois/Wisconsin border. This was his 36th volunteer program.
Also, Outside Online magazine called Wes "the most inspiring man on the Pacific Crest Trail" after completing the trail despite his mild form of cerebral palsy. He has also thru-hiked the 567 mile Colorado Trail, climbed all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, and finished several ultramarathon trail races covering over 10,000 miles!
On our day off, four of us volunteers drove a 200 mile loop, crossing four mountain passes as we visited the quaint village of Georgetown...
... and rode its famous Georgetown Loop Railroad.
Our scenic view as we worked on the trail...
Here's our amazing group of hard-working volunteers: (L to R)
Our final night we treated ourselves to a restaurant meal in town...
Finally, taking down the group tent was our last chore on Saturday before we all left...
By the way, over the years, AHS has built/maintained 41,146 miles of hiking trails utilizing 558,708 volunteers, which represents 108 million dollars in labor! To see what my prior 34 projects have been like, here's a link to my previous service projects.
