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Jordana and I headed north on Broadway early Saturday morning on August 16th to join Junior Ranger staff and community volunteers for our 2025 service project to honor Maddy. We knew some of Maddy’s and our friends would be there, but we weren’t sure how many people would actually show up. And, even though we generally knew the area we would be working in and what we would be doing, we didn’t know the specifics.

When we arrived at the parking lot on Lee Hill Road we found that Junior Ranger ranger leaders and team leads were already at work. At least a dozen of them were setting up shade tents, bringing out tools, and bringing in large water coolers. We walked over to the table they had set up about 100 feet from the trail head with things to set up in honor of Maddy: a picture, a sign with his journal entry titled “What can we do?”, patches, and the water bottles we made last year with the JR logo and the same journal entry. 

The group began to gather, even as walkers, hikers, and riders went by, in and out of open space through the busy trailhead. Hanna and her boyfriend Sean arrived from Golden. Unfortunately, Shayna and her family were not able to join us this time.  A little before 9am, Lee Michael,City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks Senior Program Manager kicked off the project and then turned it over to us.

We spoke of our purpose in underwriting the community service project from the Maddy Lignell Legacy Fund and centering the work on Maddy and supporting his values: working hard, environmental stewardship, and love of the outdoors. We talked about his four years working with Junior Rangers and the life lessons he gained from that experience. We were extremely grateful to speak out loud about Maddy, saying his name, invoking his spirit, and sharing him with others.

The group of 45 or so folks then split into three groups oriented to key tasks: fence building, boulder moving, and trail “scoring”. Community members were oriented to their gear and safety needs by Junior Ranger team leads and the groups walked to the trail they would be working on.

The 2025 project was about habitat restoration and the removal of a social trail. What we soon discovered was that the trail was not some tiny meandering trail for a few hundred feet, but a full blown hard-packed trail that had probably been used for at least a decade and stretched nearly a quarter mile with zero shade. It was shaping up to be quite a challenge! 

We chose the pick axe crew and got to work swinging them to obscure the trail and help with restoration. That meant breaking up the packed down trail into chunks of loose dirt to a depth of 6 inches. Quite a few friends and community volunteers (former or prospective junior rangers of high school age and their parents) also swung picks. Others joined teams to build fence closures at either end (involving construction, drilling, and rebar pounding with sledges). Other teams used heavy duty webbing to lift small boulders into the trail where they could be artfully placed. Hanna and Sean moved from section to section, feeling all of what this day means. 

As everyone enthusiastically set to and chatted over the next few hours, serious progress was made. In fact, we learned yet again, how much can be accomplished by a large group of dedicated people. What a unique and satisfying experience! In just over two hours the heavy work was complete and the teams turned to using McClouds, strange looking but very effective heavy-duty hoe-like tools to gather duff from the surrounding meadows to cover the scored trail. In just 2.5 hours the volunteers were able to completely transform and close the quarter mile established social trail.

Fortunately, instead of the blazing sun that was anticipated, the weather was overcast and while folks were tired and sweaty after finishing the work, no one was completely wiped out or suffering from heat exhaustion.

Maddy’s legacy fund provided packed lunches for the community crew after finishing and, after a few closing words, folks sat together in groups under the awnings to eat lunch and enjoy conversation and the glow of what we had accomplished together.  

The group that came together from Maddy’s community and community volunteers had lived and experienced many of the values he had written in his journal. In this service project we:

• Organized and built power

• Lifted each other up, through shared work

• Built community and mutual aid

• Learned, learned, learned

• And found love and joy and the strength of the human spirit

We love you, Maddy!