Outdoor Volunteers set trail projects

BASALT — The Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers will begin a summer season of projects from Aspen to Silt with a two-day, crew leader training session on Saturday and Sunday.

The Basalt-based nonprofit welcomes public volunteers on all of its projects — go to www.rfov.org for more on how to sign up; preregistration is required. RFOV provides tools, crew leaders and a dinner at the completion of each project.

This summer’s slate of projects begins April 26 and 27 with a two-day, hands-on crew leader training session on the Wulfsohn Trail in Glenwood Springs. A second crew-leader project takes place June 28 and 29 on the Thompson Creek Trail near Carbondale.

For those who aren’t looking to lead, but simply to lend a hand on a trail/outdoor project, here’s the schedule:

<b>May 3: Lake Christine, Basalt</b> — Work will include installing interpretive signs, fencing, constructing a new trail from the parking lot to the dam, and other miscellaneous tasks. The previously planned wetlands restoration project will not take place (that work is under contract to a private firm).

<b>May 10: Red Hill Trail, Carbondale</b> — Work on the three single-track trails nearest the entrance — Three Gulch, Blue Ribbon and Mushroom Rock. These BLM lands see 55,000 visits by hikers and cyclists per year.

<b>June 7: National Trails Day projects</b> — Help maintain the first three miles of the Sunnyside Trail near Aspen or work on the Forest Hollow and Scout Trails outside of Glenwood Springs. The latter project includes brushing out the overgrown far end of Forest Hollow Trail, finishing a reroute around a deeply rutted trail section and taking care of some priority maintenance needs on the first two miles of the Scout Trail up from town.

<b>June 21: Maroon Lake and Scenic Loop trails</b> — Help maintain and improve these two trails to a condition able to handle the more than 200,000 visitors per year who travel to this spectacular alpine lake just outside of Aspen.

<b>July 26: Hunter Creek Trail, Aspen</b> — Sections of the trail from town up to the Benedict Bridge are in need of repair. Work includes rebuilding boardwalk, replacing deck and railing on the bridges, building rock retaining walls, and refurbishing sections of the trail.

<b>Aug. 23: Ashcroft boardwalk</b> — Volunteers will replace the first half of the wooden boardwalk that serves as the entryway to the historic ghost town south of Aspen with a new, low-maintenance gravel trail.

<b>Sept. 13: Arbaney-Kittle Trail, east of Basalt</b> — This trail follows an historic ranching road/pack trail that climbs 2,000 feet off the valley floor to the ridgeline separating the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan River valleys and then continues for another nine miles to connect into other trails and old roads near Aspen. Volunteers will tackle two priorities. The first is trail maintenance on the first three miles up from the trailhead, and work to define a half-mile stretch of the trail at Sloanes Peak, where folks tend to get lost.

<b>Sept. 27: Wulfsohn Trail</b> — This will be the third and final RFOV project to finish constructing the new Wulfsohn Trail above the Glenwood Meadows Shopping Center. In 2006 and 2007, volunteers completed about two-thirds of this new, 2-mile-plus trail on newly acquired Glenwood Springs open space. This year, volunteers will construct about one-third of a mile of new trail to finish the access from the west and Midland Avenue, construct an 800-foot connecting trail to the east above the Community Center, and reconstruct 300 feet of trail through a silty/bog-when-wet area using gravel.

<b>Oct. 11: Tamarisk removal, Silt</b> — Volunteers will continue work to remove these non-native and invasive plants from the banks of the Colorado River on the Town of Silt’s island in the Colorado River. This is the largest remaining patch between Rifle and Glenwood Springs.