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14 June ~2008
It is troubling to see how badly the pine beetle is devasting the Lodgepole Pine forests where I backpack. I'd say 70 percent of the trees are standing dead, with the rust brown needles slowly dropping off. This has happened relatively fast - in the last three years. All that is spared are the young Lodgepole Pine and the Engelmann Spruce that are intermixed with the Lodgepole.
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Smoky The Bear gave us the impression that we were saving the forests by stopping forest fires, and he lied to us. Western Forests need fire to be healthy. In the past the forests were a mosaic of ages, due to fires that would only burn to the edge of the trees that were a uniform stand. After 100 years of fire suppression the different age stands blended into a dense forest loaded with fuel. When a fire does finally occur it can be catastrophic.
Trees that are in a mature, overcrowded forest have trouble competing for water and sunlight. That puts them in a weakened condition, ripe for an outbreak of the native pine beetle, which is what is killing the Lodgepole Pine where I backpack. The forest service has estimated that this outbreak of pine beetle may result in the death of 90% of the Lodgepole Pine in Colorado.
The early pioneers reported that forest fires commonly occurred, some started by lightning, and some started by Native Americans who understood the effect of fire on forest ecology. Fires meant more shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses, which eventually translated into more deer and elk, which the Native Americans depended on for survival.
The wild card in the current outbreak of pine beetle is climate change. The winters have not been having the extended periods of very cold temperatures that are needed to kill the beetles.
I teach the children in my nature programs a couple of lessons about this. One is that nature is not static. While we thought we were protecting our forests in perpetuity by suppressing fires, we were encouraging their demise at the crunching mouthparts of the beetles, by allowing the trees to get too thick.
The other lesson is that from death comes life. As the standing dead trees drop their needles and fall over the next couple of decades, more light will hit the forest floor, and will encourage grass, wildflowers, shrubs, and aspen sprouts, which are good forage for deer and elk.
In a couple of decades though my backpacking days will likely be coming to an end, assuming I am graced to make it that far, and for now I just do not enjoy camping among so many dead trees. I will travel quickly through these dying forests and climb up to just below the timberline, where the blowing snow accumulates and Englemann Spruce and Subalpine fir are still green and healthy.
That's what I did two days ago, and it was sure worth the effort.
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