Observation skills came in handy during Critter Crawl. You woud never know that some of our guests had never looked for critters in our river before- they were pros! We caught so many crawdads, and even a large dragonfly larvae hiding under rocks! ​

On Saturday we had a blast with friends from the Cole neighborhood of Denver with our annual campout celebration! This year was a bit different than other years- we packed all our fun into one evening when in a typical year we sleep over at Johnson Habitat park. ​

For some of our Cole neighbors, this was the first time they got to make, and taste a s’more! What a special moment to share with our neighbors! ​

We kicked off the week on Monday by getting to know the world’s water and our fellow campers with a game. Campers took turns tossing a sticky hand at a world map, and tracking if the hand stuck to land or water. Not surprisingly, water covers most of the earth, and so most campers hit water! ​

The Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) & SPREE's summer High School River Rangers were lucky enough to travel to Phantom Canyon, aptly named because it seems to appear out of nowhere as you are driving along the plains of the northeastern Colorado. The Canyon is one of the last roadless canyons on the Front Range last weekend, and it provides habitat for many wildlife species and native plants. Phantom Canyon is maintained by This Nature Conservancy (TNC) and it is closed to the public. We were fortunate to work yet again with TNC at Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV) on this annual trip, for the opportunity to see this spectacular landscape along the North Fork of the Cache la Poudre River, while doing maintenance on the Phantom Canyon River Trail.