The Empire PAW Site just west of Empire, Colorado is being developed into an outdoor classroom
for testing trail and exhibit designs that will include persons of all abilities. The site will provide a place where
the general public, college students, government agencies and others can come together to experience trail
and exhibit designs that included all in these outdoor recreation experiences.
The test trail will be designed to scale of the Empire-Middle
Park Wagon Road on the Clear Creek
County side of Berthoud
Pass. The trail will have
interpretative stops with tactile exhibits representing the actual location of the site along the existing wagon road on Berthoud Pass. Each of the interpretive stops will tell the story/history of that specific site.
A wall, yet to be designed, will have steel sections cut out to represent the outlines of the mountains
that can be seen from the south side of the wagon road at that specific location. The wall will be part of an experiment looking
at ways to include persons with visual impairments in this recreation experience.
On the north side of the trail will be six trail segments so visitors can test different combinations
of running grade and cross slope. The first section, A, will have a running grade
of 2% with different cross-slopes from 2 to 10%. Section B will have a running slope of 4% with cross slopes from 4 to 12%.
Section C will have a running slope of 6% with cross-slopes of 2 – 4%. Section D will have an 8% running slope with
a cross-slope of 2%. Section E will have a running slope of 10% with a cross-slope of 2%. Section F will have a running slope
of 12% with a cross-slow from 2 – 4%. These sections of trail are an important part of providing trail builders and
users a visual explanation of the new Architectural Barriers Act
Accessibility Guidelines for Outdoor Developed Areas.
There will be several other exhibit areas on site, which will be used as experiments for including
persons with visual impairments in outdoor recreation experiences. These tactile exhibits will give important information
for all visitors from the partners of the Empire PAW Site.
