Over the last few years, my appreciation for our natural resources was heightened while engaged on many volunteer projects with VOC, Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV), Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI), and Friends of the Dillon Ranger District (FDRD).
We worked passionately to rejuvenate our natural assets, and through these magnificent – and at times unrecognized – efforts, satisfaction and an even deeper passion for the landscape with its beauty and ecological power rose within me.
Recognizing the value in the trail system for recreation and health, and our most treasured riparian zones for our water and wildlife, I contemplated if there was anything else that I, or any of us, could be doing beyond the trail and decided emphatically that we can.
I began to acquaint myself with legislation that promotes funding and protections for the public land we take care of on the ground as well as clean water bills that foster healthy rivers and streams, the ones that we help on streambank restoration projects.
The pollution and emissions that adversely affects the air- and water-filtering properties inherent in our soil and plants began to resonate, so I began to contribute more time to helping the High Country Conservation Center here in Summit County. Their organization leads the efforts in the county for businesses and individuals to become more energy and water efficient, which in turn helps our forests and rivers.
