Mark Madsen Accessibility Celebration & Track Chair Fundraiser August 13

Mark Madsen loved the Colorado outdoors and grew up spending countless hours hiking and fishing with his sons in the area of what is now Staunton State Park. One night in April 2001, Mark rolled his car when he swerved to avoid hitting a deer. As a result of this devastating accident, Mark was left a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. In spite of his disability, Mark continued to spend time at his mountain cabin by Lion’s Head whenever he could.


In the summer of 2014, the year after Staunton State Park officially opened, Mark was again able to enjoy many of his favorite places with the help of a track chair borrowed from Craig Hospital. Sadly, Mark passed away in his cabin on August 10, 2015.


With the support of the Madsen family, Friends of Staunton State Park has established the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund to help make the park accessible for persons with disabilities by purchasing a $15,000 track chair. To date, over $1,500 has been raised but we have a ways to go in order to make this dream a reality.

Join us for a fundraising BBQ on August 13, 2016 at the Ranch Hand Group Picnic Area where all proceeds will go to purchase a track chair, ensuring access for all to the great outdoors! We will have guest speakers from HILLS, Inc , Mark's family, and others, and track chairs on loan from Craig Hospital so you can see how amazing these devices are and how they can help those who may not otherwise be able to enjoy this beautiful wilderness that is Colorado's newest state park.

If you can't make it to the park this day, but would like to contribute and help us reach our goal of $15,000 to buy a track chair, please click the link below and it will take you to a secure online donation form - be sure to mark in the comments that it's for the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund. Thank you for your support!
www.friendsofstaunton.org/event-mark-madsen-accessibility-day

August 3, 2016

As a recent spinal cord injury patient at Craig Hospital, one of the highlights of my stay in Colorado was "hiking" with Ted Hammon at Staunton State Park in the track chairs.

Previously as an avid outdoors person the injury obviously limits what I can and cannot do. The track chair was a true blessing as it allowed me to get back outside in the great outdoors! It was a great feeling to be back on the trails just like I was before the accident.
Every moment I was on the track chair I temporarily forgot I was injured. The freedom they provide a disabled person is amazing!
I hope you all can gather the funds to have one permanently parked for use at your state park.



Kind regards,

Jason P

This. This testimonial is why we started the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund and why we are holding our inaugural Mark Madsen Accessibility Celebration next Saturday, August 13th. Please help us reach our goal of raising $15,000 for a track chair and to continue making additional improvements to the trails at Staunton State Park - Colorado Parks and Wildlife! If you can't make it to the event, you can donate on our secure website here: www.friendsofstauntonstatepark.org/event...en-accessibility-day

In addition to purchasing a track chair, one of our other goals is to make the trails themselves more usable to the less able. We had a wonderful young man working on his Eagle Scout Project approach us about doing something at the park and he chose to modify one section of our Davis Ponds Trail that had large boulders with significant cracks between that were mostly impassable with regular wheelchair wheels and kept them from completing the entire loop.

Davis Ponds Trail Before

We reached out to Fiberon Composite Decking and their local distributor Blue Lynx to inquire about purchasing material at cost and they went above and beyond and donated all of the decking required! It was delivered to Moore Lumber & Hardware earlier this week, who helped coordinate this with us, and we are proud to announce future Eagle Scout Alan's completed project on the Davis Ponds Trail!

Davis Ponds Trail After!

We will be doing a ribbon cutting ceremony at our Mark Madsen Accessibility Celebration Day next Saturday to commemorate this accomplishment, but you can come enjoy it anytime! A huge thank you to future Eagle Scout Alan, his fellow scouts, the Dads and Moms, and Staunton State Park - Colorado Parks and Wildlife volunteers and staff who helped make this happen!

Project funded in part by Friends of Staunton State Park.

Mt Bailey Productions was kind enough to follow up on their video about our park and Marmot Fest with this video covering our upcoming Mark Madsen Accessibility Celebration .


In just two days, we will come together to celebrate the life of Mark Madsen and to raise $15,000 to purchase a track chair for the park (the first Colorado State Park to have one!) like the one Mark had so our beautiful park is more accessible for the disabled. We've raised just over $5,000 so far, and we have an incredibly generous offer from an anonymous donor who is willing to match all donations raised on Saturday up to $2,000! Your donations will go twice as far!!

Mark grew up here, raised his sons here, and got outdoors all the time, like many of us do, until he suffered a horrible car accident that left him a quadriplegic. After rehabilitation at Craig Hospital, he got a track chair which allowed him to continue enjoying the outdoors. Sadly, he passed away in his cabin near Lions Head a year ago yesterday and, at the request of his family, we started the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund. Our goal is to use the fund to improve our trails and to purchase a track chair (and eventually a 2nd one) so anyone who needs them can come to the park and reserve them at no cost.

We are going to serve hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, coleslaw, baked beans, chips, drinks, and dessert for a suggested donation of $10/person ($5 for kids), we'll have a few guest speakers, two track chairs on loan from Craig Hospital for anyone to try them out, and we'll do a ribbon cutting for the newly improved Davis Ponds Trail thanks to a project an area Boy Scout working on obtaining his Eagle Scout status completed last weekend. We hope you can come join us and support our efforts to make our newest state park right here in our back yard even better! The event is from 11am-3pm, we'll start serving food at noon, presentations at about 12:45-1:45, ribbon cutting at 2 and a walk down Davis Ponds Trail from 2-3 if you wish to do the loop. If you can't make it but would like to contribute toward the fund, you can go to our secure website and donate through PayPal here: www.friendsofstauntonstatepark.org/event...en-accessibility-day

We hope to see you Saturday!

We had a beautiful soft sunrise to start our day!


This was earlier as we started setting up, the burgers and hot dogs are on the grill, we'll be serving lunch around noon!

We Did It!!!!!!!! Holy cow, our family of "Friends of Staunton State Park" grew and came through in a HUGE way today! Thanks to the generosity of all who attended, and those who donated online, we not only reached our goal of raising $15,000, we EXCEEDED it! We are still counting everything, but we will begin immediately researching track chairs for the best one for our park, and also look to acquire a sling transfer lift so we can complete our Phase One goal of the Mark Madsen Accessibility Program.

Phase Two, which we are very close to reaching depending upon the additional online donations that are still coming in, is to purchase a second track chair so disabled friends can hike together!! How wonderful would that be?!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You. From the entire Board of Directors of the Friends of Staunton State Park, and on behalf of the Madsen Family, thank you. You touched our hearts this week and made an Impossible Dream, Possible! <3

We have incredible news to share: last night we received another donation for the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund and Accessibility Program for a heart-warming, humbling, amazingly generous amount of $15,000, bringing our total raised to over $40,000. We are so deeply appreciative and thankful to you all again for helping us realize our goal of improving accessibility for Staunton State Park visitors! We are now in the process of purchasing two track chairs for the park with the hope that they will arrive by mid-October. We will keep you all posted as we definitely will have a celebration the day the park can start renting them out for use!

Thank You!

On August 13, the Friends of Staunton State Park held the inaugural Mark Madsen Accessibility Celebration. We had guest speakers from HILLS, Inc, Mark's family, and Craig Hospital, among others, track chairs on loan from Craig Hospital for guests to try out, and cooked a delicious lunch for attendees. You'll find a photo album on our Facebook page here , and you can watch the whole presentation here:


We are proud to announce that we have purchased our first track chair which is on its way, and plan to purchase a second. Staunton State Park will become the first Colorado State Park with an Accessibility Program!

We have formed a Mark Madsen Accessibility Committee to explore how best to use the additional funds and how to grow the program. We are considering ideas such as scholarships to help those who have transportation issues as well, and partnerships with other organizations who serve the disabled. If you have any suggestions or represent an organization that would like to work with us, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you would like to contribute and help us continue our efforts to improve accessibility, please click the link below and it will take you to a secure online donation form - be sure to mark in the comments that it's for the Mark Madsen Memorial Fund.

From the bottom of our hearts with utmost gratitude, we thank you for your support. This program couldn't have been launched without all of you, nor without the support of the staff and volunteers at Staunton State Park who will now take on managing the Accessibility Program. Anyone wishing to come explore the outdoors who needs these chairs may reserve them free of charge. We'll share more details on how to do that as we get closer to the date the park staff are ready to implement the program.

Please save the date of October 14, 2016, at 11:00am, for our Key Ceremony where we will officially turn the key to the first track chair over to Staunton State Park!

www.friendsofstaunton.org/event-mark-madsen-accessibility-day



Bob Felker, Conifer resident


Tom Carr, Director, Craig Hospital Therapeutic Recreation Program


Marie Hensick, sister of Mark Madsen and Sparky, Mark's service dog


Wayne Parkinson and Sharon Trilk, Board of Directors, Friends of Staunton State Park


Zach Taylor, Staunton State Park Manager

A wonderful testimonial we received and can share with you. There's a good reason we call Ted our "godfather" of the Accessibility Program. #heartwarming #gratitude

To the folks at Staunton State Park:

My son Hudson was injured in October of 2015 during a football game. Hudson is an avid outdoorsman. He loves to hunt and fish. We are almost a year out from his injury and he has longed to get outdoors. With the help of Craig Hospital and especially Ted Hammon, Hudson was able to enjoy your park via the track fab chair. We had an incredible day! We spent over three hours trekking through some of nature's most beautiful areas. Words cannot express the joy felt in a dad's heart watching his son get back outside. This was made possible because of you! The trails were perfect for the all terrain chair. Ted Hammon is an incredible guide who loves Staunton! He went out of his way to make this event special. Your mission to provide access to your park to everyone is a tremendous blessing. Every dollar you have raised and invested has already been well worth it. Thank you from a family in Oklahoma whose lives were tremendously blessed by your vision, investment and hard work. We look forward to our next visit!