This might seem slightly melodramatic but in this day of fast cars and video games, of TV and the internet the great outdoors is beginning to feel more like a lost family member every year. The outdoors is a force for peace in many of our lives because of beautiful climbs, calming hikes and that feeling you get when the last sigh leaves your body and it is just you and the woods, or the desert, or the mountains. That feeling is what RMFI is dedicated to preserving and we could never do it without help. This blog is a bit of a list to show off all the great work our volunteers and donors have done this year. It is the thanks we would like to give on this day.

In the 2011 work season RMFI enjoyed the help of 1,197 volunteers who worked 197 days on trail and erosion maintenance in 10 locations donating a total of 18,758 hours. A condensed list of accomplishments  is as follows.... 

• 5,394” of trail made and improved, including...
  • 2,419” of summit trail up Blanca peak, Colorado's 4th highest
  • 1,500” of trail to 4x4 wall in Indian Creek
  • 500” at both Shelf Road and Fountain Creek,  250” at Garden of the Gods (Upper Loop Trail), 150” at Beaver Creek WSA and 75” at Signal Butte
• 11 acres of restored area, including
  • much of Central Garden, with help from the City who made fences to make the work enduring
  • large scale alpine restoration on Pikes Peak at ~13,000” after the brand new paved road was built

That is the boots on the ground, shovels in the dirt accomplishments of our volunteers. We thank you and we know that your friends, family and fellow outdoorsmen, and women, do as well. But this thank you note would be far from complete without a shout out to some of our new and old donors and supporters.

So thanks to the Fountain Valley Youth Philanthropy Program (www.fvs.edu/default.aspx) for choosing RMFI as the recipient of $1000, to Craft Lager Fest (www.craftlagerfestival.com) for our brand new partnership and to Mountain Chalet (www.mtnchalet.com) for their continued support including all the proceeds from the Banff Film Festival. We would also like to thank the Access Fund (www.accessfund.org) for their collaboration with out hands-on trail workshop, funding for the restoration of the Garden, their help with RMFI's Adopt-a-Crag event at Shelf and for letting RMFI present at their conference.

Thank you to everyone for all your help and we sincerely wish you an excellent winter of skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing and snowshoeing, of enjoying the stark beauty of snow, naked trees and strong winds.