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Since 2012 PWV has assisted the Canyon Lakes Ranger District in restoring its trails after they were damaged first by the High Park fire and then the flood of 2013. During the flood and fire seven of the District trails were seriously damaged. Three of these trails were closed to the public for two years or more. The North Fork trail, near Glen Haven, was rebuilt by PWV and Forest Service personnel over a two-year period and is now open to the public. During the trail restoration period 1.5 miles of new trail was built and another 3/4 mile was repaired. A puncheon, a log stringer bridge and a large plank bridge were built. Over 5,000 volunteer hours were spent to restore this trail. The Lion Gulch Trail has also been extensively worked on in the past three years. It is now completed and was opened to the public this past year. This trail has one new bridge and over a mile of new trail with another mile repaired.
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Poudre Wilderness Volunteers (PWV) is a Larimer County, Colorado nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 to assist the Canyon Lakes Ranger District of the United States Forest Service in managing and protecting the wilderness and backcountry areas within its jurisdiction. To achieve this mission, PWV recruits, trains, equips, and fields citizen volunteers to serve as wilderness rangers and hosts for the purpose of educating the public, and provides other appropriate support to these wild areas.
PWV has grown substantially and diversified since its founding and is considered to be one of the largest, most effective organizations of its kind in the nation.
The Need
- Federal appropriations for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are not sufficient to cover the costs of forest management and conservation. Furthermore, the USFS doesn’t have enough staff to adequately patrol and monitor the Wilderness and backcountry trails in our area.
- Backcountry use continues to rise, reflecting population growth and demographic changes along the Front Range and elsewhere in the nation. A recent National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (2000 – 2007) indicates that participation in outdoor recreation activities increased by 25 - 31% and that Americans’ interest in nature and nature-based recreation is changing. While activities such as hiking, backpacking, horse riding, mountain climbing, and snow skiing have recently shown declines in popularity, viewing or photographing birds, wildlife, and flowers and trees have increased by 19 to 26%, and kayaking has increased by 63%. In 2010, the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests were visited by 6 million people, the second highest number of visits to a National Forest in the nation.
- Many backcountry users have no idea what a designated Wilderness is or why it must be left “untrammeled" by man. A majority of them know very little about low-impact camping. If there is nobody to inform visitors about appropriate Wilderness use, some of our Wilderness areas could become so heavily impacted that additional restrictions on public use will be imposed.
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Weed Crew
- Trained 40 new PWV recruits to identify, report, and treat five target noxious weed species.
- Held 20 weed pulls to treat noxious weeds at 23 locations in 9 different areas. Musk thistle, Houndstongue, Bull thistle, and Common mullein were treated on a total of 114 acres. Scotch thistle, Diffuse knapweed, and Common burdock were seen and treated at a few locations. Canada thistle was seen at many locations but not treated while Leafy spurge and Yellow toadflax were each seen at one location but not treated. Fourteen different PWVs participated in one or more weed pulls. Collectively, they volunteered a total of 479 hours on these weed pulls.
- Held two public weed pavilions; one at the North Fork trailhead (where a total of 42 people learned about noxious weeds – where they occur, the negative impacts they have on native ecosystems, and what PWV, Canyon Lakes Ranger District, and Larimer County are doing about them) and one at the Little Beaver Creek trailhead on Old Flowers Road.