Category: Press

Larimer County Commissioners OK range

11/14/2008

By Kathryn Dailey
Loveland Reporter-Herald

FORT COLLINS — Larry Curran moved to the Ptarmigan subdivision about a year ago for its quiet atmosphere and peaceful views of the neighboring golf course.

But Curran, along with many other Ptarmigan residents, fear that if a shooting range is built on the land to the northwest of their subdivision, they will have to deal with noise that will decrease their property values and quality of life.

“What I would ask the panel to think about is would you bank your mortgage on your decision,” he said to the Larimer County commissioners during a public hearing Monday night.

The commissioners unanimously approved Colorado Youth Outdoors’ special exception request to build an education pavilion and trap and skeet shooting range on its 240-acre property near Windsor with conditions such as a noise mitigation plan and the hours and days of operation.

“Safety and noise issues can be mitigated,” said Commissioner Randy Eubanks.

However, the commissioners indicated that if modeling did not show that the sound levels could be brought down to reasonable levels at the boundaries of the property, the subject would be brought back for reconsideration.

The property sits just south of County Road 36 and north of County Road 34C, immediately east of Interstate 25 and west of County Road 5.

Loveland-based Colorado Youth Outdoors is a nonprofit that works to build relationships between children and parents by sharing outdoor experiences. The proposed facilities would be available for free to qualified nonprofits such as 4-H and the Boy Scouts.

“It’s truly a family deal,” said Chuck Freitag of Loveland, who was one of several of the 48 speakers at the meeting who gave pleas in support of the proposed project.

The request was in front of the commissioners in late September, but was tabled when applicant Bob Hewson requested more time to resolve some potential concerns with adjacent landowners. In the past month, Hewson had a couple of meetings with property owners and neighbors to explain the project more fully and conduct a sound test.

“We want to work with the neighbors as much as possible on this,” Hewson said, adding that they could try to minimize the number of shooting days to 75 per year.

Neighboring landowners, developers and residents of Ptarmigan said they weren’t against the mission of Colorado Youth Outdoors or the proposed project, just the shooting range.

“It’s noisy. It’s disturbing,” said Ptarmigan resident William Wollenberg.

B.J. Johanningmeier, who also lives in Ptarmigan, feared the decrease in his property values from the perception people might have that there would be lots of noise and safety issues associated with a shooting range.

“Perception is a very difficult thing to get over when you’re trying to sell a house,” he said.

Some of the speakers in support of the project noted that they felt there was lack of shooting ranges in the area.

Mark Cousins, the hunter education coordinator with Colorado Department of Wildlife, said that about 1,600 children in Larimer and Weld counties this year have passed through the hunter education program and would benefit from a shooting facility.

“Ranges are being crowded out by development,” Cousins said.

“We’re losing (shooting opportunities).”

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County backs shooting range plan

11/4/2008

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November 4, 2008
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The Coloradoan

A proposal to establish an outdoor shooting range southeast of Fort Collins moved ahead Monday over the protests of nearby property owners.

The Larimer County commissioners unanimously approved a zoning exception for a plan by Colorado Youth Outdoors, or CYO, which owns 240 acres just east of Interstate 25 between Larimer County roads 34C and 36, that include a five-station trap-shooting range.

Commissioner Randy Eubanks said the shooting range is compatible with the area.

“I think the safety and noise issues can be mitigated,” he said.

The commissioners imposed conditions that would restrict the range’s hours of operation and limit shooting to 75 days a year. Otherwise, they supported the organization’s proposal despite concerns expressed by neighboring land owners.

The area, which is known as Swift Ponds, has been open to hunting and fishing by youth-oriented nonprofit organizations for many years. CYO, which bought the property last year, has plans for a variety of improvements at the site, including an education pavilion and indoor shooting range.

But the group’s proposal to operate a trap range on the property that would be open to CYO’s after-school programs as well as other nonprofit organizations, including 4-H and Boy Scouts, raised the hackles of nearby property owners.

Neighbors from as far away as Ptarmigan, which is more than a mile from the site, told the commissioners noise from the proposed range would disturb residents and harm property values.

The area around the property is open agricultural land now, critics said, but in the years to come it is likely to be transformed into residential and commercial developments.

Longtime local developer Bob Everitt, who is not involved in any projects in the area, said the range would drive down property values for current owners and in the future.

“I just don’t think this is the right place for a shooting range,” he said.

Noise from the range would be muffled as much as possible with berms, landscaping and other measures, said Bob Hewson, executive director of CYO. Sound tests have shown most of the noise from shotguns would not violate county noise restrictions.

Supporters of the organization said the location is ideal for programming aimed at bringing youth and their parents together for outdoor activities.

Struggling to keep his emotions under control, CYO volunteer Jim Moser said the organization’s work makes a difference with families.

“If you could see these parents and students bond … you wouldn’t fight our organization,” Moser said.

Businessman Dallas Horton, who is part owner of land directly south of CYO’s property, said he has nothing against the organization. But a shooting range would affect his property, which is slated to someday hold 750 homes and retail development.

The land was annexed into Windsor seven years ago.

“I’m in support of 100 percent of what they want to do except the shooting range because it will devalue our property,” he said.

Horton said the organization should look to build a range somewhere else.

But shooting ranges have been difficult to establish anywhere along the Front Range, Commissioner Glenn Gibson said.

“We’ve been trying for six years to find a shooting range,” he said. “It’s just not that easy.”

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9News Special on CYO

5/10/2008

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LOVELAND - When Tom and Bob Hewson were kids, the outdoors kept them close with Bob admittedly catching less fish than his brother.

"That's why he's the instructor and I work in the office," said Bob.

In 2001, the pair combined their passion for both the outdoors and family to create Colorado Youth Outdoors. It's a non-profit after-school program that demands parent participation.

"Anything the student does, the parent is going to do with them," said Bob, CYO's executive director.

That can be a tall order. CYO teaches the parent-child teams about archery, shooting and flyfishing.

During the winter, they hunker down inside and learn about the activities. One Wednesday evening at Thompson Valley High School, the group was putting together their own fly rods.

When the warmer weather arrives, everyone makes their way outside to test their new skills. CYO has just to place to do that.

The organization owns Swift Ponds, a 240-acre piece of property with 12 ponds. It's located just east of I-25 in Loveland.

Earlier this month, a group was there introducing their fly rods to the fish.

Brenda Gardner got to watch her son, Charles, catch a fish on his first cast.

"I think it's brought us a lot closer," Gardner said of the program, "Charles doesn't have a father around so I'm trying to be Mom and Dad. This is part of why I'm learning outdoor stuff."

One of the most attractive parts of CYO is its cost: It's free.

"Your payment is your time," Bob said.

It's a two-year program aimed at high school students and their parents.

"That's a time in the life when kids start to diverge from the family," Bob said.

Over the years, the two have received quite a bit of feedback. Parents and teenagers usually say the bonds formed through CYO brought their family safely through those teenage years.

"Sometimes we're not even sure of all the impacts that we make," Tom said, "They're much bigger than teaching skills."

Since its inception, CYO has found a great deal of success. The program is already in eight schools, most of them in northern Colorado.

"It's kind of up here growing, getting some flight feathers," Tom said.

The fraternal duo is not thinking small. They want to see their creation in every high school in the state of Colorado.

"To see this gift really multiply," Bob said.

That gift of family Bob and Tom picked up long ago while traipsing through the Great Outdoors.

If you want to learn more about CYO, you visit their Web site at www.coloradoyo.org.

See the original article on the 9News website below:
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=91523

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A Clear Vision -The Reporter Herald

4/27/2008

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Adrian Bugarin, 10, left, and his brother Arturo Bugarin, 14, shoot at targets with their friend Grant Blair, 15, at Colorado Youth Outdoors’ new property at Swift Ponds near Windsor. The group has been coming from Greeley to take advantage of the recreational opportunities at the site. Reporter-Herald/Christopher Stark

A Clear Vision -The Reporter Herald
by Pamela Dickman

Cheryl Blair pulled back the string on her bow, sighted with her left eye and let an arrow fly.

It pierced the target just where she wanted.

“I’ve never shot one until a week ago,” the Greeley woman said, beaming at her 15-year-old son, Grant, who awaited his turn during archery practice.

Through Colorado Youth Outdoors, a program started in Loveland to share outdoor experiences among local families, Blair shares parts of her son’s life she otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience, physically or financially.

“I’m on oxygen,” she said, pointing to a portable pack. “I’ve had arthritis since I was 17. I’m not exactly mobile.”

She cannot hike into mountainous areas but she can drive to Swift Ponds, a natural area just off Interstate 25 north of Windsor, and experience the great outdoors with her son.

Since the early 1970s, the Swift Ponds area has been a haven for groups to share the outdoors with children who may not otherwise get that experience.

Now, Swift Ponds are owned by Colorado Youth Outdoors, which plans to build a shooting range, pavilion, classrooms and offices on the property. The Loveland-based nonprofit is in the midst of raising $6 million for the project — the first of seven campuses it hopes to create across Colorado.

“It’s about sharing a vision,” said Loveland resident Bob Hewson, who founded Colorado Youth Outdoors with his brother Tom seven years ago.

Their initial vision was sharing with others the family outdoor experiences they had as children. The Hewsons started by introducing after-school curriculum in Loveland for parents and children, and the program has grown to encompass 10 schools in the region.

“We didn’t have any money, but we had a vision,” Hewson said.

Their most recent vision — the campus at Swift Ponds — does have some money thanks to several donors. But about $4.7 million is still needed to complete their plan.

Louis Swift, a Fort Collins Realtor who designed the ponds for youths, specified in his will that his land was to be given to a nonprofit. In October, four years after his death, Swift’s children gave the land to Colorado Youth Outdoors.

“We paid $10 for 213 acres,” Hewson said. However, a small chunk of adjacent land, an additional 27 acres, belonged to Swift’s widow and was not part of the gift.

She sold the land to Colorado Youth Outdoors for $1.2 million, which the organization paid for with a grant from Gates Family Frontiers Fund.

With the land secured, Colorado Youth Outdoors is now raising another $4.8 million to pay for new buildings. Of that, the group has $50,000 from the Erion Foundation and $25,000 from Anheuser-Busch.

The first project, a 150-seat pavilion that looks over one of 12 ponds, will be built this year with the Erion Foundation grant.

The next piece, a $1.4 million shooting center where participants can shoot at clay targets outdoors and with .22-caliber rifles indoors, is planned for 2009.

The following year, 2010, will see the construction of a $1.5 million classroom and office building.

The plans also call for a $1 million endowment to maintain and manage the property, home to a plethora of birds, 25 species of fish, beavers, muskrats and more.

Eventually, Colorado Youth Outdoors hopes to spread into as many of the state’s 354 high schools as it can and open six more campuses like the one in progress at Swift Ponds.

“We’re right off I-25,” Hewson said. “That’s our neighbor, yet, you would never know this is here, a sanctuary, so to speak. ... We can have Mother Nature at its finest right next to I-25.”

Louis Swift built that sanctuary, and his son, Chase, said he would be ecstatic to see how Colorado Youth Outdoors is using his legacy to build its own.

“American tradition is about hunting and fishing and being outdoors with family,” Chase Swift said. “I think it’s critically important.

“The time out here is paid back many, many ways. It’s relationships.”

For Blair, the property and program add another dimension to her relationship with her son.

She appreciates the expert instruction, the equipment and the facility Colorado Youth Outdoors provide.

And she saves her vacation hours to leave work early on Wednesdays and participate in the classes and outdoor experiences with her son.

“He’s going to remember I was out there doing the challenges, standing side by side,” she said.

“Everything we do, it’s a memory maker.”

The breakdown

Colorado Youth Outdoors acquired 240 acres at Swift Ponds where parents and children can share outdoor experiences. With the $4.8 million the group is raising, it will build and maintain facilities and manage the land. Here is what’s coming:

2008: A 3,000-square-foot pavilion that will seat 150 and overlook one of the 12 ponds on the property.

2009: A 6,500-square-foot shooting center that will have a place outdoors for participants to shoot clay disks and an indoor range to practice shooting .22-caliber rifles.

2010: A 5,500-square-foot building with offices and classrooms. Once that is built, the nonprofit will move its headquarters from downtown Loveland to the site.

How to help

At its major fundraiser, a celebrity shoot-out scheduled May 16-18 at Sylvan Dale Ranch in Loveland, Colorado Youth Outdoors will debut a new fundraiser.

The group will begin selling flagstones for $100. A buyer’s name will be placed on each stone, which will line pathways around the new buildings at Swift Ponds.

People who do not attend the shoot-out can still purchase flagstones.

More information is available by calling 970-663-0800 or e-mailing info@coloradoyo.org.

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Greeley Tribune article on CYO

10/14/2007

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Colorado Youth Outdoors got an awesome write-up by Dan England of the Greeley Tribune. Enjoy!

Losing ground: More people mean more houses and fewer places to explore

Dan England, dengland@greeleytribune.com
October 14, 2007

As soon as B.J. Miller saw the gun, she wanted to shoot it. B.J., 17, a senior at Roosevelt High School, called herself a tomboy kind of girl, and she craved time in the outdoors. But she’d had a couple of fishing trips with her father, and that was about it. There weren’t many places to go that it didn’t take a long trip in the car, and since their divorce, her mother, Tammie, worked without a day off at her two jobs.

Still, an inner voice in her piped up as soon as she saw a video from Colorado Youth Outdoors on shooting trap. “I want to do that!” the voice said, and it grew louder as she watched the video. “Doesn’t that look fun?”

It did, she agreed with herself, and so she asked her teacher about it. CYO, as he called it, offers a chance for kids to learn how to shoot, fish and hike all for free. There is just one catch: You have to do it with a parent.

And then she wondered if the voice calling for her to shoot came from the tomgirl or the little girl inside her, the one who knew Dave Moore, 50, of Milliken, since she was 8. Moore was the only real father figure she had, she thought to herself, even if he and her mother split up after a long relationship. They never married, but B.J. called him her stepfather.

Her life as a teenager was pulling them apart. Really, what do a 17-year-old high school senior and a 50-year-old firefighter who lives alone have to talk about besides the weather?

They were losing their connection. She missed him.

Maybe this would be a way to get it back.

A growing disassociation with the outdoors

Larry Rogstad speaks wistfully about Quail Creek in Oklahoma. The stream of water was a half-mile from his house, and he used to go clamming. It was a boyhood place to dink around, see a hawk and get muddy.

“Now the world has changed,” said Rogstad, an officer with the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Greeley north area.

For northern Colorado — really, all of the Front Range — that world has changed faster in the last few years than anyone anticipated. Greeley’s growth rate reached 2 percent in 1995. In 1997, it hit 3 percent. Now 3 percent is considered a robust rate — one in which a ton of building activity and new homes pop up everywhere. After a couple decades of never reaching 2 percent, Greeley reached at least 3 percent six of the next eight years.

As proof the growth was everywhere, not just in Greeley, Weld County was named the fastest-growing “metro area” in the country in 2003 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

And that growth, many believe, is one of the main reasons kids are losing touch with the outdoors.

Many of the places where kids could go explore, especially in the last few years in Greeley, were paved with asphalt and covered with houses. Snake Mountain, a small pocket of green where kids used to go sledding, was eaten by Wal-Mart. Large chunks of land beyond 59th Avenue between U.S. 34 and 4th Street are now subdivisions. And what’s left is private land, signed and posted, either ready for sale or fenced away from the pubic.

As a result, the numbers of hunters and anglers, and the revenue that comes with those sports, are way down all over the country. A recent report stated that license sales are down by 11 percent in the last decade alone. And though it’s not serious in Colorado, yet, wildlife officials worry that even with the state’s expansion boom, numbers are only stagnant.

But the drop in hunting and fishing is just one example of a generation that is losing touch with nature and the outdoors, said Richard Louv, a veteran columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune, who seemed to shine light on the subject two years ago when he released his book “Last Child in the Woods.” In the book, Louv stated our nation’s children were suffering from what he called “nature deficit disorder.”

If you think this is a disorder only a hippie could love, Louv argues that it’s a big reason why doctors have seen a remarkable increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, stress, depression and anxiety disorders, not to mention childhood obesity.

Louv, of course, doesn’t blame the disorder solely on growth. He blames busy parents working longer hours and a national obsession with all things gadget, as children are more wired and plugged in than ever. Ask a sixth-grade classroom how many kids have a cell phone and have a MySpace page, and most, if not all, will probably raise their hands. He also said parents, scared by constant media reports of shootings, kidnappings and kids being eaten by bears, are more afraid to let their kids out of their sight than they were 20 years ago.

But Louv said in a phone interview that in northern Colorado, growth may be a bigger factor than in other states, especially given its residents’ love for the outdoors and opportunity to enjoy it whether they bike, hunt, fish, hike or watch wildlife.

“Colorado values the outdoors more than anything, but you’ve got this huge growth rate,” Louv said. “It’s really a paradox.”

One of the biggest challenges for adults and kids alike is finding places to go enjoy the outdoors, said Jim Bulger, who runs the hunter education programs for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

“The urban society has begun to sprawl in such a manner that before, you could have lived in the city, but you could go five miles and be outside the city and find a place to explore,” Bulger said. “Now if you live in Denver, you can’t go 70 miles and be outside the city.”

Rogstad still visits the place where he grew up in Oklahoma. But he doesn’t go clamming in Quail Creek anymore. It’s now a subdivision.

Gone with the wind

As the chances to explore outside are lost to subdivisions and well-lit streets, the idea of traveling to a world where cell phones don’t work, where the Internet isn’t available and where dinner might be a hot dog over a fire seems increasingly foreign to families.

“A lot of it, quite frankly, is just convincing kids that they want to go outside,” said Leslie Thibodeaux, camping director for the Boy Scouts of America Longs Peak Council in Greeley.

After a downswing, Longs Peak Council has enjoyed a recent uptick in kids camping with their families. Most of them have never camped before, but Thibodeaux said the premiere place, at Red Feather Lakes, absorbs the intimidation many feel about spending a night in the woods. The major hurdle these days is the concern that comes from that unfamiliarity.

Lynn Brunelle, an author who once worked as a writer for Bill Nye, the Science Guy, recently released a book, “Camp Out,” that encourages parents to take their kids camping by offering ideas for fun games, treats and activities. She said in a phone interview that once kids are exposed to the outdoors, they tend to enjoy it. But they may need to be convinced more than ever before.

“I’ve never met a kid who didn’t think it was cool to be outside,” said Brunelle, who has two kids ages 3 and 5 and takes them camping. “They might protest at first, wondering where their video games are, but my goal was to show how fun and cool and amazing it is to be outside.”

Rogstad gets discouraged at the way time is spent, such as a structured rafting trip up the Poudre Canyon. Families get on a bus, get off, get on the raft, float down, get off and get on the bus to go home. It’s rare when kids are allowed to explore and discover something on those trips, he said.

Yes, Colorado offers more chances to enjoy the outdoors than many other states, but growth has taken away more of the unstructured, casual wandering outside, Rogstad said. In the last year, in fact, Rogstad wonders if even the state wildlife areas offered by the Division of Wildlife are far too packed with regulations to make it the kind of trip he has in mind. Those areas need to be regulated because of the hunters and hikers, and yet the rule might take away yet another chance to explore.

“We need to look at places close to home where we can just get out and be outdoors,” Rogstad said. “If you don’t have that unstructured time, you won’t cultivate those interests that eventually become a passion.”

The outdoors offers a wonderful way for parents to bond with their kids, said Bob Hewson, executive director with Colorado Youth Outdoors. The mission of CYO is to bring kids and their parents together. Encouraging kids to enjoy the outdoors is secondary.

“As I look at our family, that’s what bonded us,” Hewson said. “If we thought rebuilding car engines was a better venue for bonding parents with their kids, that’s what we would be doing. But until someone demonstrates a better way than the outdoors, that’s what we’ll do. There’s a desperate need today for that to be taught, and not just because kids are losing touch with the outdoors, but they’re losing touch with their families.”

Preaching to the choir

While there’s a growing urgency to address kids losing touch with the outdoors, the idea appears to intrigue mostly those already in touch with nature, including wildlife officials and environmental leaders.

“Most still have never heard of the idea,” said Zoe Whyman, community relations manager with the Fort Collins Natural Areas Program. “Just making people aware of the problem is our main goal.”

Whyman is part of a group of organizations in the Fort Collins area dedicated to helping kids get in touch with nature and the outdoors.

Parents think their children are getting time outdoors when it really might just be time outside playing soccer on a bluegrass field.

“This is the easiest thing in the world, and yet it seems to be the hardest thing,” Whyman said. “We’re not saying go somewhere and spend money and enter an organization. We’re saying stop doing all that and just go to a nature area and muck around.”

Activities such as dance lessons, music lessons and soccer games have replaced that time outdoors, another reason why Bulger, the state hunter education coordinator, schedules structured Saturdays teaching kids how to hunt. It seems to be the only way to reach parents.

“I raised four kids, and I know the challenges they’ve got,” Bulger said. “How do they fit in something with the 42 other things they’ve got their kids doing?”

Sometimes, when something is right in front of you, as the mountains are every day the sky isn’t grimy with ozone, the natural inclination is to believe you’ll go next weekend, until it never happens, Hewson said.

“A lot of people drive out of state for what we have here,” he said. “But it’s way too easy. We take it for granted.”

And adults seem to have lost touch with the outdoors along with their children because they’re too busy to drive an hour or two to enjoy it, said Ray Tschillard, director of the Poudre Learning Center, which serves school districts in Windsor, Eaton, Johnston, Milliken and Greeley by offering outdoors classes.

“You’ll hear adults say, ‘Gosh, I don’t know if I should go down there, I might get muddy,’ ” he said. “Or they’re worried about bugs. It’s really obvious they’ve never been exposed to something like that before.”

Attempts to solve problem rebuffed or not enough

There’s a piece of farmland on the outskirts of Greeley that makes Karen Scopel’s heart ache every time she drives by it. It would be the perfect spot for children to explore.

She’s doubtful the city will ever get the chance to buy it.

“I drool over it,” she said. “I’ve got a willing seller, but we can’t pull the money together to even go get a grant. I don’t know how much longer they will hold out.”

The city of Greeley and Weld County both tried to get a sales tax approved by voters to purchase open space. Twice the effort failed in Greeley.

Weld County and Greeley residents don’t want to pay money for open space, she said. The movement sparked by Louv’s book may change that, but as others admit, it’s still not a priority for most residents.

Scopel said property owners were concerned that the government was going to move in and snatch private land. She can still say “fair market value” in her sleep, but it didn’t seem to matter.

So what about grants from organizations such as Great Outdoors Colorado? Well, those require matching funds, and Greeley can’t even scrape up the money for that. And there was talk of putting open space in the city’s 2A improvement sales tax, which brought the city the Ice Haus and the FunPlex, among other amenities, but there was too much concern that the open space might mean residents would reject 2A.

That’s why Scopel said she believes a citizens’ initiative, like the one that helped bring an open space fund to Fort Collins, will be the only way Greeley will have the kind of natural, open areas Fort Collins enjoys. That tax was approved in 1992 and continues to fund a Natural Areas Enhancement Program. In the past 13 years, Fort Collins has nearly 30,000 acres of natural areas partly as a result of it.

“The focus was to really preserve these areas for wildlife and native plant species before they were developed,” Whyman said.

Access to natural areas is one of the biggest challenges in getting kids out to explore and connect with the outdoors, Whyman said.

Greeley gets a little open space from developers when they’re finished with the land. That’s nice but Scopel said it’s also kind of haphazard, with mostly just leftover green belts surrounded by houses.

“It really doesn’t get us very much,” she said, “and it’s way better to get stuff way ahead of development.”

The vision of former Greeley resident and public school teacher Josephine Jones, and her willingness to leave her land and house to the city in her will, got the city probably its only real natural area, a park just north of U.S. 34 with a gravel trail, native plants and a small pond. Runners love the area, and there’s a small playground, as well as places to explore. Glenmere Park is another small spot, with its famed black-crowned night heron nests and bird island, an island the city spent hundreds of thousands to improve a couple years ago.

Greeley’s attempt to bring nature to its residents, however, are commendable but a little misguided, said Rogstad, the DOW’s wildlife officer.

The Poudre Trail is a great place to watch wildlife, but it’s also a concrete strip surrounded by private property or fences that discourage or even ban exploration off the trail. The development in that area, which includes the trail, fragment the cottonwood riparian habitat, one of the most important and one of the most threatened, habitats in the West, Rogstad said.

Rogstad’s even found far more roadkill by the Poudre Learning Center, with its paved roads leading to the school, than he did before the building was established.

Tschillard, director of the learning center, agrees Greeley needs more places like Josephine Jones and fewer traditional parks.

“That Frisbee Golf park is about the only place where you can just show up,” he said. “Kids can’t just wander over and start playing baseball anymore. They can’t wander over and just start having fun.

“Most of the parks here really are just manicured lawns. So we still need that place where you can just explore.”

Rogstad is encouraged by plans for a new, 90-acre fishing facility at 35th Avenue and the Poudre River. It will be a while, two years to be exact, before it opens, but the city of Greeley spent staff time to develop it and got a DOW grant to build it, and the plans are to make it a natural area, not a place covered in bluegrass and plastic slides.

The movement to get kids in touch with the outdoors

Five years ago, before Louv’s book, a plan to organize a hike just for kids would probably get strange looks.

Now it’s efforts like Kids in the Woods, led by Poudre Wilderness volunteer Dave Cantrell, which gives kids who may not otherwise have the opportunity a chance to walk in the wilderness under the guidance of experienced hikers. The hikes are only a part of what many Fort Collins organizations hope will be a movement to spread the ideas of Louv’s book and, more importantly, do something about it.

“The time seems to be right to get something going,” he said. “We want to let kids have a good time out in the natural world.”

The Poudre Learning Center is taking that mission seriously, and though many times students from the area’s school districts aren’t too sure at first about the wild place that surrounds them, by the end, they seem to buy into it, Tschillard said. Projects, such as planting trees and watching raptors, are mixed with classes about the world that is getting their shoes muddy.

“One student was asking for something to mark a spot,” he said, “and I finally asked why he needed it, and he said, ‘I want to check to see how my tree is doing next year.’ ”

Even more structured experiences, such as camping in Red Feather Lakes with the Longs Peak Council in Greeley, can help inspire families to do it on their own next year, said Thibodeaux, the camping director.

“Camping is an investment in time and money,” she said, “but when you come to our camp, all you have to do is show up with your sleeping bag. There are kids who do this and become avid mountaineers or hikers.”

Camping, for instance, doesn’t have to be difficult or a gut check, said Brunelle, the author of “Camp Out.”

“You don’t have to go backcountry camping,” she said. “Car camping is a lot easier. Approach it as an adventure. See what happens. And don’t over plan it.”

As long as children enjoy it, they’ll want to do it again, said Bulger, the hunter education coordinator.

“We want our kids to have a positive experience, whether or not they get to shoot a lot of birds,” Bulger said.

Bulger’s got more kids than classes to fill the need, he said.

“We see growth every year,” he said.

Louv sees efforts like these cropping up all over the country, and that’s one reason he’s far more encouraged now than when he wrote the book two years ago. The efforts are popping up everywhere, from city planners to parents to organizations like the ones above.

“This is an issue that brings people together who don’t agree on other things,” he said. “There’s great hope now.”

Hope comes from trips, such as the one last month when parents and children met at the Forest Service office in Fort Collins and went on the first Kids in the Woods adventure. The trip included seven home-schooled kids, two parents and many volunteers from Poudre Wilderness.

Hope comes from the comments of one of the kids after it was over.

“I will never forget that hike,” she said. “It was so cool.”

Something in common

B.J. Miller and Dave Moore’s expectations weren’t too high in the class from Colorado Youth Outdoors. They figured they would go there together and probably meet in the car at the end to talk about their night. But they did everything together. They tied flies together. Even better for B.J., they shot trap together.

Moore used to shoot and hunt, but that was lost along the way. Now the time he’s spent with B.J. rekindled his interest.

“He’s not as good as me,” B.J. said and laughed. “But he’s also taught me everything I know.”

The two shoot in competitions together. They drive out together and talk about other things. Moore is a big part of her life.

“You just need that little push to keep it going,” Moore said. “I think this will stick with us.”

B.J., after all, is working to get her hunting license. She’ll finish the classes soon, and she already has her shotgun, a gun donated by an organization thrilled to have a young girl trying out the sport. The two are already talking about what their first duck hunting trip will be like. B.J.’s never done that, and Moore hasn’t done it for 15 years.

It could be pretty fun.

It will be time together.

And on that trip in the woods, with the outdoors surrounding them, as they wait for the ducks to cross their path, they won’t talk about what could have been lost. They’ll only enjoy what they’ve gained.

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Explore article in Coloradoan

8/19/2007

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This article appeared in the local Explore section of The Coloradoan newspaper today.

[photo above] Kyle Janny, 2, fishes using a rod and reel with his dad Dave Janny on Aug. 11 at the Junior Bash kids' fishing day at Swift Ponds. Fishing sales nationwide are flat, but fly-fishing appears to be going strong in Northern Colorado, according to local outfitters.

Local fishers cast away, bucking the national trend
New fly-fishers, women anglers hooked by sport

BY KELLI LACKETT
KelliLackett@coloradoan.com

Long a classic American outdoor activity, fishing has been slipping in popularity.

Anglers are aging, and fishing sales nationally have stagnated, according to a May U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. In Colorado, the number of anglers has dropped by 26 percent since 2001.

"The trends are showing that things are (still) downward," said Frank Peterson, president and CEO of the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1998 to try to halt the long-term decline.

"I won't kid you. We are fighting some other circumstances - video games, and kids not being outdoors."

Interest grows in fly-fishing

But local fly-fishing suppliers, said that fly-fishing seems to be the exception to this downward trend.

"I've noticed the opposite really," said Grant Houx, owner of St. Peter's Fly Shop, 202 Remington St.

Gordon Waldmier, owner of Angler's Roost Fly Fishing Co., 925 E. Harmony Road, Suite 200, agreed. "We have seen slow, steady growth," he said. "More and more people are trying fly-fishing."

Mark Damian Duda of Responsive Management, an outdoor research group in Harrisonburg, Va., said the nation's demographic shift from rural locations to urban ones is the biggest reason for the decline in fishing's popularity..

Then there's the plethora of activities luring kids and parents.

"Thirty years ago, people would get up and go fishing,'' he said. "Now, you get up and you have a soccer game at 9, a baseball game at 11, a team picnic at 1."

Houx and Waldmier agreed that there are many activities competing for children's - and their parents' - time.

Women picking up rods

In the past three to five years, women, not kids, have been the demographic driving growth in the regional fly-fishing market.

"More and more women students are in our fly-fishing classes," Gordon said. "We have a full line of women's fly-fishing clothing and accessories." And there are more women-only programs and events, he said.

Some women are fishing with their husbands or boyfriends, but not all, Waldmier said.

"Some of the ladies that come in as regulars - I saw one yesterday and she said, 'I just found a new woman to fly-fish with,' " Waldmier said.

Drawing kids

Making fishing appealing to children and teenagers is a little trickier, Houx and Waldmier said.

"I think that is something we need to work on - getting more youth into it," Houx said.

On Aug. 11, Markley Motors, Interstate Battery, JAX Outdoor Gear, Summer's Auto Repair and Supply and Majestic West Custom Eroidery sponsored at kids' fishing day at Swift Ponds in an effort to introduce kids to fishing.

St. Peter's Fly Shop supports Trout Unlimited programs, and offers an annual kids' fishing day. This year, it's on Sept. 9.

Angler's Roost has helped with fishing programs at the Ben Delatour Boy Scout Camp in Red Feather Lakes and has made presentations to local Boy Scout troops.

"I think that as in any sport, it takes parent involvement," Houx said.

Devon Yager, 5, of Fort Collins, holds his fishing rod as his grandfather Mark Daley removes the hook from a bass the young fisherman caught during the Junior Bash Kids' fishing day Aug. 11 at Swift Ponds.

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Greeley Tribune article on Swift Ponds

8/9/2007

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Swift Ponds got an awesome write-up by Dan England of the Greeley Tribune. Here is the link and below is the article. Enjoy!

(Photo above) CHASE SWIFT STANDS NEXT to the largest of several ponds at the Swift Ponds property on Wednesday. According to his late father’s wishes, Swift is transferring ownership of the land to Colorado Youth Outdoors, an afterschool outdoor education and recreation program for high school students.
ERIC BELLAMY / ebellamy@greeleytribune.com

The fishing ponds: Family donates land that will help Colorado Youth Outdoors connect with youngsters

Dan England, dengland@greeleytribune.com
August 9, 2007

Even before Louie Swift turned a chunk of hardscrabble farmland stuffed with gravel into an oasis of ponds just east of Interstate 25 and north of the Windsor exit, it was Chase Swift’s favorite place to go as a kid.

He fished in the one shallow pond, created, Chase thinks today, after it was mined for asphalt to pave the interstate. It was the perfect distance, a quarter-mile walk or so, to enjoy a spot of fishing and have the sun melt his tiny troubles away.

When his father died in 2003, Swift had transformed into a dozen ponds, each one full of fish and visited by birds of all feathers. It was Chase’s job, besides his work as a freelance photographer, to arrange tours and visits by groups of kids. That was Louie’s dream, to have a place where children, especially those with a fight ahead of them (either due to a disability or a hard life at home), could catch their first fish.

Chase had just started fulfilling his father’s wishes when a group of junior high students were fishing the trout pond, the only pond that’s stocked every year, and the only one where kids can take a fish home instead of releasing it back to the wild. The water temperature was perfect, so the kids, with their poor casts slapping the water, were catching fish by the buckets. Chase went by one kid and asked him how many he had caught. “Oh, 10,” the kid said.

“That’s when I realized that boy will never forget that day he spent in an incredible place,” Chase said. “I’ve never forgotten that day.”

Now 45, Chase lives in Wellington, but he still spends much of his time out at Swift Ponds. But soon he’ll relinquish most of the control and responsibility to a new owner, Colorado Youth Outdoors, possibly by the end of August, as soon as all the legal issues are worked out.

Louie, a real estate agent for farmland who, among other highlights, handled the transaction that later became the Kodak plant in Windsor, bought the 240-acre property in 1969 for farming, but after he discovered all the gravel, he mined it and began forming his vision. He mined chunks of the land rather than the whole portion, with the goal of having several ponds with different kinds of fish rather than one giant pool of water.

He worked with Colorado State University’s fisheries biologists and their students to stock the ponds and create habitats where they would thrive. The result is ponds full of bluegills, bass, catfish and, in one pond, 45-pound grass carp. The ponds, save for the trout pond, are self-sustaining.

That’s one reason Colorado Youth Outdoors was drooling at the prospect of taking ownership of the land. The organization uses the outdoors to build healthy relationships between kids and parents and has programs in Windsor, Roosevelt and Johnstown and will start one at Greeley Central this fall.

“We knew we had stumbled onto something just unbelievable,” said Bob Hewson, executive director and co-founder of Colorado Youth Outdoors with his brother, Tom, in 2001. “We had two visions that were very similar, and Louie had the facilities to pull it off.”

Colorado Youth Outdoors, however, has plans to take Swift Ponds far beyond Louie’s vision. Through an aggressive fundraising campaign, the organization hopes to add a shooting center, an education pavilion and make several improvements, including docks that look like big squares, making it easy for a kid in a wheelchair to get the best spot at the lake to fish — right on top of it.

“We’re going to take what we received,” Hewson said, “and add $5 million to it.”

The place won’t be open to the public, but it will be available for youth groups and nonprofit organizations with the same mission of introducing kids to the outdoors. The organization hopes to allow other groups to use it by January.

Chase’s family is a little nervous about giving away such a prized piece of their childhood. He doesn’t even know why Louie wanted the land in the first place, but he knows what his father’s wishes were for it after he died. Selling the land — valued at more than $1 million — would have gone against those wishes.

Chase and his two sisters are satisfied to keep the vision not only alive but thriving. He’ll still visit the place where he spent a good portion of his childhood, and he’ll take pride in sharing it with others.

And as he spoke about the way Swift will look one day, as an oasis for children who need a break, a pelican flew across three of the ponds. Chase paused and watched the bird head for a place to eat. “They love this spot too,” Chase said.

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Larimer County Commissioners OK range

County backs shooting range plan

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Greeley Tribune article on CYO

Explore article in Coloradoan

Greeley Tribune article on Swift Ponds

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