River Watch Sampling on the South Platte River
April 26, 2025: Earth Day Bear Creek Greenbelt Native Tree and Shrub Planting
Our first conservation event of 2025 was held on the morning of Saturday, April 26th. This year the weather was excellent with almost 100 people attending the event hosted by Lakewood Parks at Bear Creek Greenbelt Park. CCTU again helped support the event with a generous donation to purchase the native trees and plants to be planted by the volunteers that morning. Community volunteers planted 17 native trees, 10 large shrubs and 830 forbs, rushes and grasses along Bear Creek and adjacent park lakes and riparian areas.
CCTU members planted rooted willow cuttings and collected/installed natural erosion control materials on two (2) streambank sections. Thirty-four rooted willow cutting bunches were planted along Bear Creek to eventually help stabilize 1,900 feet of eroding streambank.
CCTU would like to thank the Chapter members that came out on their Saturday morning to volunteer with the Lakewood community and for their hard work in Bear Creek to accomplish this project.
May 15, 2025: Lair o' the Bear Light Trail Maintenance
On May 15, 2025, CCTU members worked with volunteers from Jefferson County Open Space and Patagonia Denver to maintain the 1.6-mile Bruin Bluff Trail at Lair o’ the Bear Park adjacent to Bear Creek. Our trail work included maintaining and improving earthen water bars, runoff ditches and drains to help prevent soil erosion on this popular trail. Jefferson County Open Space personnel paired us up with experienced trail volunteers to help demonstrate the erosion control methods and tools as we progressed along the entire length of the trail.
Besides being a beautiful day to work outside to help protect Bear Creek, it was also an educational day learning about native flowering plants, various invasive plant species, recent beaver dam activity and last year’s volunteer work to effectively minimize the use of social trails down to Bear Creek.
A very big thanks to our CCTU volunteers that came out to support this conservation effort at Jefferson County’s Lair o’ the Bear Park.
July 26, 2025: South Platte River Clean Up near Deckers, Colorado
The Chapter had a great turnout for the South Platte River Clean Up with twenty-five volunteers participating. Volunteers spent the morning picking up trash along a 10-mile stretch of the South Platte River and roadway including campsite, picnic and parking areas. After picking up trash, volunteers were treated to lunch provided by Deckers Event Center. CCTU would like to thank Minturn Anglers for serval of the donated raffle prizes as well as Flies and Lies for the gift card and store discount. A very nice antique bamboo fly rod was also raffled at the event. A big thanks to Kristy Yearsley for organizing and running the event again this year and for all the volunteers that came out and participated at this year's clean up to make a difference to our well loved trout stream.
August 26, 2025: Lair O' The Bear Tree Planting and Trail Maintenance Project
On August 26, 2025, four CCTU members and four Jeffco Open Space employees participated in project to repair/remove unauthorized trails that were causing erosion and other damage to the habitat at Lair O’ The Bear.
We planted 35 willow, 20 plum, 3 poplar and 10 chokecherry. We also closed 177 feet of unauthorized trail and seeded the closed areas with native flora seed in an attempt to increase biodiversity in the surrounding area. It was a relatively cool day and the work was mostly in shady spots - a real bonus after the recent heat wave.
It was a great learning experience and we also were able to see the progress of plants that were put in last year. We hope to be invited back next year to do more of this type of work.