On this trip, attendees will visit mountain riparian, wetland, and forested habitats in and around Rocky Mountain National Park and the Arapaho/Roosevelt National Forest to see and learn about impacts to and restoration efforts for these mountain ecosystems, including within the burn scar from the East Troublesome Wildfire, the second largest in Colorado history. The trip includes an overnight in Grand Lake, Colorado, a beloved all-season resort town in Colorado on the largest natural lake in the state. The field trip will be in the height of the fall color change, promising a beautiful and immersive experience in the high country of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Date: 29 – 30 September 2025
Time: 8:30 AM – Departure
Duration: Multi-Day
Capacity: Limited Space Available
Price (in USD): $660
Handicapped Accessible: No
Recommended for trip: sunscreen, water bottles, closed-toed footwear suitable for saturated landscapes, and plenty of layered clothes, including raingear and jackets, to adjust for variable high mountain climate conditions. Some hiking is required. The projects are at nearly 3000 m elevation and in the late fall it likely will be cool and perhaps rainy.
Detailed description
Rocky Mountain National Park, located in northern Colorado, is one of the most visited National Parks in the US with over four million visitors per year. The park contains high mountains and alpine tundra, subalpine forests, abundant wetlands and streams, and lower elevation open park areas. This diverse habitat supports a rich diversity of wildlife, including elk, moose, black bears, and a range of bird species. The park also has a history of change, including water diversions, browsing impacts from the high populations of herbivores, past land use, climate changes, and declines in keystone beaver populations.
Roosevelt/Arapaho National Forest is also one of the most visited national forests in Colorado, spanning the continental divide and encompassing a wide range of environments that promote recreation, natural beauty, and some of the most important water storage and delivery systems in the state.
During Day 1, we will travel from Denver and visit Willow Creek, which is directly downstream of Willow Creek Reservoir, in Grand Co. Colorado. The property is owned and managed by the Northern Water Conservancy District (Northern Water) which stores and moves water across the Continental Divide from this location to provide a vital water supply that supports agriculture and cities on the eastern side of the state. The creek and associated floodplain have been heavily influenced by water management, wildfire (East Troublesome), and historic diversions. Restoration at this site will involve restoring 1.5 miles of channel to reconnect with the floodplain, recreating beaver complexes, as well as subsequent replanting of the ~250 acre floodplain, using federal grants and funds provided by a coalition of locally influential stakeholders, together called Learning By Doing. At the time of the field trip, the work will not be completed but the team will be preparing for implementation. We will also visit the Kauffman Creek restoration area which is within the East Troublesome forest fire burn scar. This low-tech process based restoration project was completed in 2024 through a unique agreement between the US Forest Service and Northern Water. We will also discuss how varied funding and stakeholder engagement can be used for ecologically beneficial restoration.
During Day 2, we will visit the Colorado River headwaters in the Kawuneeche Valley. The Kawuneeche Valley Restoration Collaborative (KVRC) was formed in 2020 to plan, fundraise, and implement restoration projects to reduce ungulate browsing, address channel incision and water table declines caused by the decline of beaver wetland complexes, improve water quality, stimulate the growth of willows to allow beavers to return to the valley, increase biodiversity, and increase the valley’s resiliency to climate change and fire. KVRC’s 2024 pilot restoration project is located at Beaver Creek, a tributary to the North Fork of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park. Restoration interventions at Beaver Creek include a 31-acre ungulate enclosure fence and, approximately 30 instream structures (beaver dam analogs, post-assisted log structures, simulated beaver structures) that were installed in 2024. Additional work is planned for 2025. This field trip will introduce participants to iconic headwaters and riparian ecosystems in the southern Rocky Mountains. We will visit historic exclosure areas that restored parcels of the original beaver-tall willow wetland, explore degraded areas, and tour the Beaver Creek pilot restoration site.
Travel between sites will be provided by bus, however participants will be required to walk. Participants should come with closed-toed footwear suitable for saturated landscapes, and plenty of layered clothes to adjust for variable climate conditions. The hike is approximately one mile to the exclosure and wetland areas, through flat but uneven terrain. Sack lunches and snacks will be provided; participants will be responsible for their own dinners and breakfasts. Blocks of rooms in Grand Lake, Colorado, will made available.