Friday, September 1, 2017

Volunteers receive national grant funds for trail projects

Volunteers for the Clear Creek Ranger District of the Arapaho National Forest applied for and were selected to receive grant funds of $19,000 earlier this summer from the national competition, Go The Extra Mile. In August more than 85 volunteers gathered, camped at the Loveland ski area and completed several important projects on the Herman Gulch trail, which is part of the Continental Divide trail.

Basia Trout, Acting Clear Creek District Ranger said, “We are so fortunate to have such a great group of volunteers on our District! Not only did they complete the application, compete nationally and win this grant competition, they rolled up their shirtsleeves and implemented the project. The result makes tremendous improvements to the heavily used Herman Gulch trail that all our visitors will appreciate and enjoy today and far into the future.”

Ralph Bradt, Recreation, Wilderness and Trails specialist for the District said that collectively this ambitious group installed or repaired 37 drainage structures and five rock steps; placed 28 straw wattles to stabilize erosion on a steep slope; closed 100 feet of social trails and completed 2,300 feet of trail maintenance.

Go The Extra Mile is a national competition sponsored by Michelob ULTRA in partnership with the American Hiking Society. The group selected only twelve participating trails throughout the United States to share funding of $140,000. Once selected the projects competed against each other based on votes, to distribute the total winnings per entry from the ULTRA website. Herman Gulch is also the only winning trail selected from Colorado this year.



Jeff
RockyMountainHikingTrails.com
TetonHikingTrails.com
HikinginGlacier.com
HikingintheSmokys.com

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