Out and About!

Its early in the season but CFI Peak Stewards are out and about!! Here's a brief recap of the last few days...

Field Trainings are underway! In order to boost the numbers of participants in the Peak Steward Program we had to break away from the traditional 2-day training that would take place on the second weekend of June. So, as mentioned in previous posts, I've been hard at work recruiting and training Peak Stewards throughout the winter months. Then, last Thursday (6/10), last Monday (6/21...not a bad way to spend the solstice), and today I met with some of them on Mount Evans to complete their second day of training in the field. Three really great groups came out in order to identify some alpine plants and the differences in their integrity, check out some braided areas of trail and how to identify areas where people may want to leave it, and obtain a further understanding of how to educate and interact with visitors and hikers on the 14ers.

It was WINDY last Thursday and there was a lot of snow left from the previous weekends storm. In the photo above you can see Steve and Chris (both new recruits this year) flashing their 14er specific LNT cards with Bierstadt in the background. We were right to the west of Spaulding's summit at around 13,700 ft. As you can see, it was difficult to find some tundra to look at but we managed to check some out lower down.

Over the course of the last week the snow has melted considerably. Over the course of the weeks time frame that I was up there, more and more blooms were visible (Sky Pilots, Alpine Phlox, Alpine Avens and Spring Blossom just to name a few) today we were even able to identify some alpine Forget-Me-Nots!! (I think the smell like scratch and sniff Blueberries!) The blooms seem to be blooming slightly late this year in this part of the high-country but with these warm temps, they will all be out in no time. Stay tuned for more Peak Steward Updates!!

-BW