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 ages and abilities. The site will provide a place where the general public, college students,
government agencies and others can experience trail and exhibit designs that use universal design.
The test trail will be designed to the 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.
In 1998,
PAW and our partners built the Gary E. Cargill Research Trail for Universal Design at Easter Seals’ Rocky Mountain Village. This trail tested the then new recommendations found in the 1993 Recreation Access Advisory Committee
guidelines. An important part of the research conducted on Gary’s Trail was the significance of surface material for each section of test trail along with
running grade and cross-slope. The trail at the Empire Site will also test surface materials that are now available to trail
builders and see how they survive Colorado weather. A company called Midwest has become a partner of the trail and they will be donating samples of their products for us to test on the trail.
The
drawing below by Nancy Ellwood shows the difference between running grade, or climbing up the hill and the cross-slope
which is the angle of the path.
On the north side of the trail at the Empire Site will be six challenge trail segments so visitors
can test different combinations of running grade, cross slope and surface material.
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-slope 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.
