Peak Performance: Outdoor enthusiasts around Colorado spend thousands of hours working with NFF partners to improve the health of the state’s vast mountains and network of trails.

Colorado contains the highest concentration of peaks above 14,000 feet in the lower 48 states. Standing on top of any of those peaks, you look out into an archipelago of craggy mountain tops and snowfields that seem suspended between a forested floor and an endless sky. Climbing these mountains was once an activity reserved for a small band of fearless alpinists, but as trails, maps and hiking and climbing equipment improved, “summiting” has become an experience for almost anyone with a sense of adventure. Often, that means climbing with 50 or more people on one mountain. This explosion of use isn’t limited to the high peaks; it can be seen all over the National Forests in Colorado, from mid-elevation wetlands to off-road and snowmobile trails, and it has had devastating effects on some of the region’s ecosystems. The problems are most acute on the Front Range, the mountains directly west of the Denver metropolitan area.

The issue is more complicated than just too many people on too little land; it’s part of a series of ecological and cultural changes taking place in the region. The Denver metropolitan area is 135 densely-populated miles long and has been booming since the early 1980s. Much of that growth can be traced to, not only a strong regional economy, but also the wealth of recreational opportunities so close to the cities. The region continues to attract people from around the country who are looking for the benefits of both an urban lifestyle and an undeveloped and vast playground.

Meanwhile in the mountains, a century of fire suppression and other management decisions helped create forests that are overgrown and full of combustible fuels. Today, those overgrown forests are experiencing an extended drought along with a population that’s expanding into their fringes. In 2002, the situation exploded into the 137,000-acre Hayman Fire, the state’s largest-ever wildfire.

Following that fire, the Forest Service, which manages most of the public land on the Front Range, diverted a large percentage of its funding to a new fires and fuels reduction program on the Front Range, which left budget holes in other areas.

“We decided we needed to shift funding to deal with the fires and fuels,” said Steve Sherwood, Forest Service director of recreation for Region 2. “The money had to come from all programs, but a lot of it came from recreation, and that kept the recreation budgets nowhere near enough to compensate for the explosion in recreational use, especially in motorized traffic.”

Today, Sherwood noted, the Arapaho-Roosevelt, the White River and the Pike-San Isabel National Forests, all near Denver and the I-70 corridor, are among the top 10 most visited National Forests in the country. The recreation infrastructure and the fragile alpine, forest and wetland ecosystems just can’t handle that volume. So the Forest Service and other land management agencies are looking to communities for help.

“In Colorado,” Sherwood said, “we’re trying to redirect what limited funding we have to organizations that are able to leverage those dollars.” Many of those organizations, it turns out, are NFF partners.

The NFF started working in Colorado to help address the recreation problem. Today, 75 percent of all of the projects the NFF funds in Colorado are somehow recreation-related and involve everything from building or improving trails to restoring wetlands. The projects are coordinated by NFF partners who collaborate with Sherwood and other Forest Service leaders. In most cases, the work is performed by community volunteers.

“The land agencies are in a constant juggling act,” said Ed Self, director of Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV), a 2003 MAP award recipient, “and their backlog of maintenance activities only gets bigger. They need help. Luckily,” he added, “there seems to be no end in the communities’ interest in pitching in.”

WRV focuses on putting community members in the field to work on everything from restoring municipal watersheds to improving camp sites and trails in designated Wilderness. Its mission is broader than just recreation enhancements and encompasses many aspects of ecological restoration. Self said the group has nearly 1,200 people in its volunteer database and works with between 600 and 700 active volunteers, ranging from kids to adults.

“We’re not just out there to work,” Self said. “The work is fun, it’s ecologically important, and it’s rewarding, but that’s not it. We’re building a community of volunteers that are in it for the long-term benefits to the land.”

Another NFF MAP partner, the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI), employs its own cadre of volunteers to mitigate human impacts solely on the 54 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado, 48 of which are in National Forests. Although the mountains are some of the highest and most rugged in the country, they are all within a few hour’s drive of the Denver metro area, and collectively, they have more than a half million visitors a year.

“The tundra on these peaks,” said TJ Rapoport, CFI’s executive director, “is like the skin of the mountain. If it is damaged, all that’s underneath tends to decline.” The tundra high on the peaks, he explained, is resilient to the elements, UV, low moisture, severe wind and short growing seasons‹but it didn’t evolve with so many humans walking on it. For years, many of the peaks had no established trails, which meant hikers created their own trails and the tundra they walked on was often damaged, leading to erosion and loss of delicate vegetation.

CFI has coordinated with the Forest Service to build new trails, fix others, erase harmful ones, combat erosion and restore damaged creeks, on all the 14ers and working with volunteer crews. “We could recruit more volunteers,” said Rapoport, “or we could hire professional crews or youth corps, but we choose from all of these.” The youth corps, said Rapoport, help engage kids in community service and prepares a new generation of Forest Service and other land agency leaders.

The NFF works with other groups as well. Each one has their own niche, but many of them, such as Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, collaborate with other NFF partners, strengthening the regional network of conservation partners. Together, they are helping the million of outdoor enthusiasts in Colorado to work towards improving the health of our public lands.

NFF Partners in Colorado