Summer ’21 Mid-Season Update

It’s the end of July and believe it or not, we are already HALFWAY through our volunteer project season! It has been an incredibly busy summer so far, so we thought we’d give you all an update on what we have completed in just two months. We have done work at: Frey Gulch, Tenderfoot, Soda Creek, Sapphire Point, Gold Hill, Hunter’s Knob, Spruce Creek, Quandary Peak, Peaks Trail, Frisco Peninsula, Bakers Tank, Peru Creek, and Rock Creek.

On the youth side of things, we have provided educational programming or youth service projects for Frisco Day Camps, Breckenridge Recreation Center, Keystone Science School, Little Red Schoolhouse, Eagle Scouts Troop #188, Wild and Free, The Cycle Effect, Silverthorne Recreation Center, Summit County Libraries, and the Dillon Farmers Market. Plus, our new crew of Youth Forest Stewards (YFS) have already learned so much and accomplished a great deal. Read about the YFS completed work in our Local Youth Forest Stewards in Action blog. We also introduced a new, macro-invertebrate educational program to the kids this summer. Youth get to splash around in a local stream or lake, collect bugs with nets, examine them closeup with magnifying glasses, and learn all about their life-cycles and how important they are for our lake and river ecosystems. All in all the program has been a great success and the kids are loving it!

Our summer long programs are in full swing and we’ve seen so much participation from the community. We have over 40 trailheads adopted around the county, and over 100 Volunteer Ranger Patrollers out on the trails, educating our growing number of visitors. Fishing line Adopt-a-bin volunteers are also out in full force, ensuring fishing line recycling bins are emptied, cleaned, and line is turned in to be recycled. We also have a crew of Forest Monitors, collecting valuable data in partnership with the Forest Health Task Force. This is a citizen science program, where volunteers are in charge of monitoring specific plots around the county, in order to provide the U.S. Forest Service with data needed for future forest management considerations.

And we can’t forget about fundraising events… We’ve been busy providing hiking recommendations plus selling t-shirts, maps, and guides at the Dillon Farmers Market every Friday. We brought out almost 60 volunteers to help at Keystone’s Bacon & Bourbon Festival back in June, and we provided volunteers for the Fruition concert at the Dillon Amphitheater. There are so many ways to get involved!