Introduction:
On Saturday, Oct 29, 2011 Loren Stormo and Dave Johnson hiked through the area west of Lindbergh Lake which includes proposed treatment units 79-89 to observe the composition and condition of the stands. On the following day, Loren and Claudia Kux hiked through unit 66 in the northern portion of Sec. 14 (north of the campground). The goal of this document is to relay our findings to those of you who may have not recently walked those areas to be able to be better informed as you submit your written comments to the Forest Service regarding the Glacier Loon Fuels Reduction and Forest Health Management Proposal. The deadline for written comments is Nov. 7th. We are doing our best to keep emotion out of this document. A wise and experienced person told Loren a couple weeks ago that when facing very difficult decisions, he found that separating emotions from the details of the project resulted in a better long-term solution.
That said, this is obviously a difficult situation and we will probably not find total agreement on thisproposal. We ask you to consider this hypothetical situation:
· You are responsible for a long term decision about a tall, very beautiful tree which leans across the property boundary and over a neighbor’s home. How would you handle the situation if:
o You owned the property with the tree and were on a tight budget.
o You owned property with the tree and money was no object.
o You were an employee who was responsible for the management of the property with the tree and your job description included incentives for minimizing long-term hazards.
o In each of the above situations, you were planning to move to a different state in two years.
· I encourage you to consider the complexity of the situation with our changing forest in hopes that as we struggle amongst ourselves and work with the Forest Service, disagreement will help us sharpen our focus instead of causing us strife and intimidation.
North of the lake in Unit 66
This relatively flat unit has some short 30-40% slopes. The over story is for the most part overstocked with 8-16” Douglas fir and lodge pole pine, with occasional western Larch, Ponderosa pine, and spruce. We bored a 13” diameter Douglas fir near the Ranch that was 65 feet tall, 88 years old and 11 growth rings in the last inch near the bark, with approximately 80% live crown. About 15 feet away from that tree in a dense clump of trees, we bored an 8” Douglas Fir that was 72 years old and 24 rings to the inch in the last inch near the bark, with approximately 40% live crown. We bored a 4” lodge pole pine tree near Arthur’s swamp that was 34 years old with 24 rings in the last inch near the bark with approximately 50% live crown. The over story contains scattered large diameter relics of western larch and Douglas fir that appear to be in fair to good health. The stand is quite dense throughout the majority of the unit with pockets of downfall and standing dead lodge pole pine and Douglas fir from beetle kill. Some areas have a 15-30 year old understory of predominantly lodge pole pine and Douglas fir. We observed no squirrel caches of cones.
Near the Ranch
North of Westerman’s
Knapweed and thicket near Eddy’s
Near Arthur’s swamp
Observations relatively consistent throughout Section 22 and the northern part of Section 27
Scattered old growth western larch and Douglas fir exist throughout the area. Old growth Ponderosa pine are very rare. (David Hunzicker, grandson of the Kotschevars, conducted a study of Ponderosa pine in the Lindbergh Lake area in a 2001-2002 study. David sampled 152 Ponderosa pine greater than 350 years old, and estimated that he sampled 85-95% of the Ponderosa pine in that age class around the entire lake.) The majority of these relics of all species are obviously stagnant. The over story is a mix of Douglas fir, lodge pole pine, and western larch with occasional Ponderosa pine, subalpine fir, grand fir, and Engleman spruce,ranging in age from approximately 80-160 years. Because the trees in this age category are only 8-16 inches in diameter, counting the growth rings was difficult for our aging eyes. In general, the growth rings of the trees in this class exhibited good growth for the first 40 years or so, but then grew tighter and tighter. The majority are 60-80 feet in height, with nice, pointed crowns and 25-40% live crown ratios. Beetles have killed a great many of the lodge pole pine during the past 2-5 years. However, we found amazingly few beetle-attacked trees from this past summer on the west side of the lake. We found several green lodge pole pine with pitchouts on the north side of the lake.We found some pockets of dead Douglas fir and suspect that beetles were the cause of mortality. We saw no sign of spruce budworm.
We saw sign of deer, elk, and bear. We didn’t see a single squirrel cache of cones. We observed a ruffed grouse, and a fair number of woodpeckers and small birds in the area.
This area is beautiful, but it is not a wilderness. Logging has occurred in Sections 22 and 27 many times in the past. A short examination of Burlington Northern and Plum Creek records showed that in Sec.27 alone, logging occurred during at least a dozen years from the late 1950’s through 2000. Much of the logging occurred in view of the lake. Past logging activities left a number of small to medium size stumps, most of which were 10-16 inches in diameter, much smaller than expected. Most skid trails were well-stocked with regeneration which was predominately Douglas fir and lodge pole pine.
Crews removed the culverts from the road down to Herrick Run. We found one place where the fill slope of the road was eroded 6-8 feet toward the center of the road. For the most part, the roads showed very few signs of erosion – less than the erosion on our summer homes road. Creek beds appear as though massive amounts of water come down the slope.
Low amounts of knapweed and thistle were present on the roads and in the forest on the west of the lake. Denser pockets of weeds were resent in the area north of the lake.
Fire scars were not as numerous as we expected, but were evenly distributed throughout the stand.
Observations for Unit 79
This SE to E facing unit has slopes ranging from 5-15% in the majority of the unit, increasing to 40% on the southern portion. We bored a 15” Douglas fir which was 70 years old, had 70% live crown, and 8 rings per inch near the bark. That Douglas fir was not representative of most trees in the stand, however. We estimated the unit to be 90% lodge pole pinewhich are 3-6 inches in diameter with approximately 25% live crowns. We could see the lake from this unit. We saw no signs of fire in the past 60 years.
Observations for Unit 80
This east-facing unit has slopes that range from 10-40%.The over story has scattered old growth western larch 10-24 inches in diameter. Some larch are infected with dwarf mistletoe. We found a few green lodge pole pine and 2 Ponderosa pine which had been attached last summer by the pine beetle About half of the larch had cones from this year. We bored a 14” diameter western larch which was 100 years old, with 10 rings per inch near the bark. We estimated 50% canopy coverage and most trees appeared to be in good health. We observed low to moderate ground fuels. The area burned by the Ponderosa pine snag (pictured below) which was cut down and extinguished by firefighters was approximately 20 feet wide and 70 feet long.
Observations for Unit 81, 82, and 83
The majority of this north to east-facing unit is relatively flat with slopes up to 10-20%. Near the top of the unit, slopes increase to 30-40%. The over story contains 10-18” western larch and 6-8” lodge pole pine which 60-70 feet tall. We bored one 8” diameter lodge pole pine that was 100-130 years old with 40-60 growth rings in the inch closest to the bark. The first 25 years of growth were quite vigorous. The over story canopy is very dense and many trees have only 10-15% live crown ratios. We could see Lindbergh Lake from the Bunyan Lake road at the top of unit 83.
Road erosion
Observations for Unit 84 and 85
This east-facing unit has slopes that range from 25-40%. This was the only unit in which we saw no evidence of past logging. In one area, we estimated the species mix to be 50% Douglas fir, 30% lodge pole pine, 20% western larch, and a few Ponderosa pine. The crown ratio was in the 30-40% range and tree vigor ranged from poor to high. Most lodge pole pine were dead from recent beetle attacks. Light to medium concentrations of dead trees were on the ground. Some areas were quite brushy. Note the picture of the well-defined water channel on a slope with absolutely no v-shaped stream channel. We saw no sign of a v-shaped channel above or below the place we took the picture, a testament to the high volumes of water which drain off this slope.
Both pictures show water scouring without a stream channel.
Observations for Unit 86 and 87
This east-facing unit has slopes that range from 20-35%. Many old stumps are scattered throughout this unit. The over story is primarily comprised of Douglas Fir, western larch, and lodge pole pine. The western larch are 10-14” in diameter and have 25-50% live crown rations. Some of the larch have large numbers of cones, but many have almost no cones. Numerous Douglas fir and lodge pole pine had been recently killed by beetles. Above the lower road, we observed that the numerous skid trails from the previous logging were well-stocked to over-stocked with 20-25 year old Douglas fir, lodge pole pine, and occasional western larch and grand fir. These units appeared to us to be satisfactorily stocked and low concentrations of fuels existed on the ground. The portion of unit 86 below the road lacked the healthy understory.
Observations for Unit 219
This north to east facing unit has slopes ranging from flat to 20%. A very scattered over story of 6-10” western larch and lodge pole pine exists. We bored an 8” western larch which was 160 years old with 40 growth rings to the inch nearest the bark. There is a healthy understory of western larch and lodge pole pine 10-12 years old and 4-10 feet tall. The understory is lightly overstocked to very overstocked.