Black Forest Trails Association

Park Volunteers

El Paso County Parks and Leisure Services is always looking for volunteer assistance in maintaining County parks. Our organization has agreed to help in several ways. We have participated in the Adopt-A-Park/Adopt-A-Trail Program for a number of years. In the spring of 2008 we began a thinning program adjacent to the approved park trails. This was done to help mitigate disease control (mistletoe and IPS) as well as fire suppression. This program will resume in the spring of 2009.

Thinning

Guide - A Ponderosa Thinning Guide (pdf or PowerPoint) was developed that gives an overview of what, how and where to thin.

Teams - Teams will have a designated leader who will be assigned a portion of trail to thin by a Volunteer coordinator

Team Leader - Responsible for:

	Assuring each volunteer completes a "No Compensation Acknowledgement" form
	Keeps track of the hours donated on a "Project Leader" form and notifies the Volunteer Coordinator
	Borrowed tools and their return

Volunteer Coordinator:

	Assigns sections of trail to be cleared
	Notifies the Parks maintenance supervisor of work done

Status:

	Thinning was done in the Black Forest Regional Park (left diagram) along the trail leading north from the north west parking lot shown on the large map in green
	BFRP status
	Thinning has not yet started in Black Forest Section 16

Schedule:

	We have completed this program for 2008. Please check back for a 2009 start date.
	Thinning is normally suspended between July 1 and mid-September to reduce the attractant nature of mountain pine beetles. An excellent review of the MPB life cycle and control can be found here.

Locations:


BFRP		BF Section 16
Click on an image above to see a larger map.
Please contact the following people to volunteer
BFRP:	Hank Hoover 495-2702 hhhoover@msn.com	BF Sect 16:	Greg Reals 495-0816 cgregr@hotmail.com

Other park projects

From time to time the Parks maintenance supervisor may have additional projects that we could help with. These could be culvert installation, rip-rap placement, trail reclamation (grading and seeding), etc. If you are interested in any of this, please e-mail Hank or phone 495-2945 to have your name placed on a list.

Last modified: Wednesday October 27, 2008