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The Learning from the Land project works with land managers and land management agencies to develop state and transition models to support adaptive management of rangelands in Colorado. We employ Ecological Site Descriptions (ESDs) created by the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to guide our selection of communities for state and transition model development. In June of 2014, we met with stakeholders in Rio Blanco County, Colorado to discuss ecological site selection. We requested input from land managers and asked them to pose questions of interest that they would like us to investigate. Participants were particularly interested in the Mountain Loam ecological site. One question that arose regarding the Mountain Loam ecological site was whether aspen communities represent one state in the Mountain Loam state and transition model, or should be considered a separate ecological site. In August 2014, we conducted a low intensity traverse of 17 aspen or sagebrush dominated plots within the area of interest. At each plot, three 50 meter transects were run parallel to the direction of slope. Vegetation surveys were conducted along each transect at meter increments using the line-point intercept method and soil pits were dug at the center of each plot. Results from analyses of data collected in the low intensity traverse will be presented along with a discussion of how these results will be used to plan the high intensity survey to be conducted in 2015 to further develop the state and transition model(s) of interest.