A couple weeks ago, Friends of Berthoud Pass announced a trash-cleanup effort for yesterday morning. They did one in June, but I was busy making last-minute preparations for my Alaska trip and couldn’t make it. About 14 of us met up at 8am on the top of the pass, watched a safety video, and got to work.

It was a beautiful morning; the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

Things seemed pretty clean up on the edge of the road, but the trash had just piled up down the embankment.

I was amazed and a little scared by the amount of beer cans, and beer, rum, and vodka bottles that people had tossed out of their cars.

After digging some trash out from the trees, I looked down and saw the other guys in the group hauling some rather big chunks of metal towards the road.

Turns out they were (rather large) chunks of an abandoned car. Lauren asked how we were going to get the largest piece up – “how else, manpower!”

The way the group split, we ran in to some people coming up from the bottom of the side we worked after about an hour and a half, and started heading back up to the top of the pass. Though it was a lot more work than I expected, it was a great time and I got to help clean up a place that I love. I’ll definitely be back in the spring if my schedule allows it.