tuesday TOURS
Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative: Collaboration for Forest and Watershed Resilience
Tuesday, September 17 • 7:45 am - 4:00 pm
This tour will highlight the rich tapestry of treatments, strategies, creative solutions, and relationships that have contributed to joint success within the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative. This full day tour will highlight the Fireshed “Stages of Readiness” and demonstrate how partners in the Poudre Watershed moved from planning to landscape scale implementation. Speakers will discuss treatment effectiveness, cross-jurisdictional partnerships, strategies for increasing pace & scale, funding mechanisms, and opportunities for adaptation advances.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the tour, participants will be able to:
1.Observe a variety of forest health treatments.
2.Discuss collaborative structures that lead to effective treatment strategies, funding opportunities, and successful partnerships.
Recommended Clothing/Gear: Appropriate for weather; close-toed shoes or boots; long pants, hat, and sunscreen suggested
Walking Conditions: Soft surfaces (mulched, gravel, grass, sand), AND hard surfaces (paved, boardwalks, concrete)
Hike Difficulty Grading: Easy: Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (under 3 miles, mostly level or with a slight incline)
Replanting the Future: Nursery Tour
Tuesday, September 17 • 7:45 am - 3:00 pm
The need for increased nursery capacity is the highest it has been. Attend this all-day field trip and tour OneCanopy, CSFS Nursery, and the Historical High Plains Arboretum. Speakers from each nursery will highlight their role in meeting the demand, demonstrate state of the art technology and growing techniques, and discuss the unique collaboration and partnership each nursery has with various stakeholders.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the tour, participants will be able to:
1.Discuss state of the art technology and infrastructure used to meet the reforestation demands.
2.Describe the current needs and demands for nurseries to produce stock to meet the reforestation demands.
Recommended Clothing/Gear: Appropriate for weather; sturdy close-toed shoes or boots; long pants, hat, and sunscreen suggested
Walking Conditions: Soft surfaces (mulched, gravel, grass, sand), AND hard surfaces (paved, boardwalks, concrete)
Hike Difficulty Grading: Easy: Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (under 3 miles, mostly level or with a slight incline)
Forest Management at the Summit
Tuesday, September 17 • 7:45 am - 4:00 pm
View the proactive and collaborative partnership approach to forest management in Summit County, Colorado that the United States Forest Service, Colorado State Forest Service, and Denver Water are using to mitigate future wildfire impacts to the community and water source for the City of Denver. Attendees will tour a successful fuels treatment buffer around the Wildernest subdivision that was critical in saving property and infrastructure during the Buffalo Mountain wildfire, explore efforts to increase tree species diversity in high use developed campgrounds along the shores of Dillon Reservoir, and learn about Denver Water’s Forest to Faucet program at a scenic overlook. Participants will have the bonus of potential leaf peeping on the drive up and around the Dillon Reservoir.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the tour, participants will be able to:
1. Learn about the collaborative forest management partnerships within the wildland urban interface to reduce impacts of future wildfire and promote vegetation diversity within high use recreation areas.
2. Understand the benefits and challenges of forest management when there are multiple natural resource concerns and objectives.
Recommended Clothing/Gear: Appropriate for weather; close-toed shoes or boots; long pants, hat, and sunscreen suggested
Walking Conditions: Soft surfaces (mulched, gravel, grass, sand) AND rugged surfaces (forest floor, narrow paths, rock)
Hike Difficulty Grading: Easy: Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (under 3 miles, mostly level or with a slight incline)
Ponderosa Pine Restoration and Monitoring
Tuesday, September 17 • 7:45 am - 3 pm
Ponderosa pine is among the predominant fire adapted species of North America, but fire exclusion from this ecosystem has significantly increased fire effects from low intensity surface fires to high intensity stand replacing events. This ecosystem is an important boundary in many Wildland Urban Interfaces along the Rocky Mountains and Intermountain West between grassland and shrubland systems and wetter mixed-conifer forests. This tour will explore various aspects of the research and management efforts that are underway to reestablish forest structures tolerant of repeated burning. Participants will look at how forest density targets are determined, how drone and terrestrial laser scanning can inform prescription development, the importance of heterogeneity to disturbance resilience, and an active treatment.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the tour, participants will be able to:
1. Observe linkages of Colorado Front Range historical forest structure and disturbance within the ponderosa pine ecosystem;
2. Observe how new monitoring techniques can be used to incorporate spatial stand structure into silvicultural prescription development, implementation, and evaluation.
Recommended Clothing/Gear: Close-toed shoes or boots; long pants; sun hat, otherwise dress for expected weather.
Walking Conditions: Hard surfaces (paved, boardwalks, concrete), rugged surfaces (forest floor, narrow paths, rock), AND soft surfaces (mulched, gravel, grass, sand)
Hike Difficulty Grading: Easy: Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (under 3 miles, mostly level or with a slight incline)
Wyoming State Forestry Department - Watershed
Tuesday, September 17 • 7:45 am - 5:00 pm
Tour the Rob Roy Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) project that is treating 200 acres around the Rob Roy Reservoir, which feeds the City of Cheyenne. Funding from this project came from a previous GNA Timber Sale and the City of Cheyenne. Participants will explore private land fuels management projects, thinning operations, and watershed management in the state. Speakers will discuss the role NGOS play in the management of the landscape, partnerships and collaboration efforts, and landscape approaches in smaller acreage subdivisions all while providing scenic views of the Reservoir.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the tour, participants will be able to:
1. Observe Cross-boundary and landscape management and the importance it has in forest management.
2. Understand the challenges and necessary skills needed to implement successful forest management projects
Recommended Clothing/Gear: Close-toed shoes or boots; long pants; sun hat, otherwise dress for expected weather.
Walking Conditions: Hard surfaces (paved, boardwalks, concrete)
Hike Difficulty Grading: Easy: Suitable for anyone who enjoys walking (under 3 miles, mostly level or with a slight incline)