Pawnee Grasslands Project, May 1998
Weld County 4WD Club

On May 3rd Bud Phillips, Pawnee National Grasslands, came to our club meeting with a list of 7 proposed projects. Two of these projects were priority, which needed to be completed before Memorial weekend. It was decided to take Mother's Day weekend to once again help the Forest Service. We selected three projects, a fence construction project in the Crow Valley Campground, to protect a new living tree windbreak. We also agreed to finish paving a bird watching trail with wood chips, and then do a clean up at the Coal Creek shooting area.

We had an excellent work crew respond, Steve & Jody Czapla, Greg & Sherry Danson, Dave & Jeanyce Nalley, Jim Nunn, Kevin Click & Dawn Gabriel, Eric Brantner, Jolene Korgan, and Jerry Wait. We met at Crow Valley at 8:30am. When Dwayne Weber (Pawnee Grasslands) arrived, he explained what was in store for the day. First, he didn't have time to line up the wood chips, so instead, several of us would be constructing and installing 4 ft. wire baskets for tree seedlings that had been planted through out the campground. Dwayne explained how he is a stickler when it comes to fence building, mainly because he doesn't want all the ranchers to think that the USFS doesn't know how to build a straight fence.

We split into two groups. One group, equiped with post hole diggers started the holes for the corner posts, while the other group went to the work center for materials to build the tree baskets. By 10:30am twenty baskets had been installed using t-bars. By the time we were done installing the cges through out the campground, we ventured over to see how the fence crew was doing. What a work of art our guys were doing. With the fence project moving along, a few of us headed to the Coal Creek shooting area to pick up trash. After swinging by the work center for trash bags, and getting lost once on the back roads of the Grasslands, we finally made it to Coal Creek. We were amazed at the minimal littering in such a big area. When we think of a shooting area we picture the worst, like Lefthand Canyon, but Coal Creek wouldn't take much time for our crew to clean up.

We headed back to Crow Valley to break for lunch. After a bite to eat we were back at it. Once the corner posts, t-bars, and other posts were in we strung two lines of barbed wire and an upper line of straight wire. Gates were built and stays were put in place. By the completion of the project, Dwayne's expectations had been exceeded. Even the club members were impressed with their accomplishment. After collecting the tools, materials, and equipment, it was 3:15pm, so we headed for the shooting range. After cleaning up the trash in the area we called it a day at 4:30pm.

Dwayne offered the Weld County 4WD Club free camping for our members whenever we would like. The Forest Service really appreciates all the work we have done on the Pawnee Grasslands though out the years.