Felicia Brower
Hi there! My name is Joey Lancia, and I’m the Conservation Coordinator at Colorado Mountain Club. I’ve been in this role since this past April but originally came to CMC as a member of the Stewardship Trail Crew in 2024. I am now tasked with operating that crew and our winter Snow Rangers, working with volunteers, and managing the CMC RIMS app.
Over in the Conservation Department, we are looking back on our Stewardship Trail Crew’s summer season. We worked on some amazing projects earlier this year and accomplished a lot of great things that I am very proud of.
Our first project of the year was a complete overhaul of the Lamborn Trail, a 2.5-mile section of scrub-oak covered trail outside of Paonia leading to Mount Lamborn, the highest point in Delta County. Working closely with our partners at the US Forest Service Paonia Ranger District, the crew spent eight weeks in the Western Slope heat clearing brush, digging trails, and building a rock retaining wall. Lamborn, a sparsely used trail, had fallen into disrepair after years without significant maintenance. The two months of work made a drastic difference on the trail, with one user saying to a crew member that it looked “the best it had in over 40 years.” Our crew members expressed how much they enjoyed working on a project on one trail over a long period of time where they could truly see the change from start to finish.
In the second half of the season, our crew pivoted to another set of projects that were started in 2024. The Curecanti Trail sits in the heart of the West Elks north of Curecanti National Recreation Area. Like the Lamborn Trail, it does not see significant use or regular maintenance. Our crew spent four weeks on Curecanti working on specific areas to address erosion mitigation, tread maintenance, and establishing a re-route for a section of trail. Additionally, the first week of September sent our crew, as well as CMC Conservation Director Brian Bergeler and myself, to the La Garita Mountains outside of Creede on the Continental Divide Trail/Colorado Trail. Staying at and above 12,000 feet for the entire week, we completed essential erosion mitigation and trail improvements with the goal of keeping through-hikers on the trail and off the delicate alpine tundra.
Overall, our season went extremely well at a time where optimism in the realm of conservation and stewardship has not seemed high. Since the start of the summer, we’ve seen countless attacks on public lands, including the attempted selloffs of lands and the intent to rescind the decades-old Roadless Rule. In February, over 6,000 federal public lands management employees across the country were fired, including 10% of the Forest Service whose workforce was already 30% smaller than it was 30 years ago. And currently, the government is shut down, leaving tens of thousands of federal employees across all government agencies in Colorado furloughed and without pay.
Despite all of this, the people have given us a reason to be optimistic about the future of conservation and stewardship. We successfully protected our public lands from being sold, and we will continue to stand up to further protect them. Organizations, including CMC, have stepped in to help where federal agencies could not this year and have done great work to assist in managing lands. Our crew’s work this summer was an essential help to the Forest Service, who had no capacity to do the work we did. As long as we all continue to enthusiastically stand up for public lands, there is optimism to be had. And here at CMC, we are taking that optimism directly into the winter.
We are extremely excited to begin our Snow Rangers season, which is an essential program that keeps winter recreation users safe in backcountry environments. With the rise in backcountry winter recreation, Snow Rangers become more important each year. Unfortunately, federal funds were exhausted last season despite an ongoing ten year partnership agreement with the US Forest Service in western Colorado. To help support continuing operations this season, we are hosting five screenings of the Backcountry Film Festival in the coming months as direct fundraisers for the program. We hope to see you there!
Looking further into the future, CMC Conservation is planning an increased number of volunteer opportunities for the next summer season. If you are looking to get your hands dirty while contributing to our state’s incredible trails, be on the lookout for events next year!
We are very excited for what is coming next for CMC Conservation and proud of what we accomplished this summer. Be on the lookout for updates throughout the winter!
