Recon in the North Fork of North Creek

I went up the North Fork of North Creek looking for the Mountain Pine Beetle.  I found a few scattered hits, but no epidemics.  Mostly the ponderosa pine looked good:  healthy crowns, a range of diameters, not too dense, a reasonable amount of regeneration, etc.  A few fire-killed trees had insects in them, but they were borers, not beetles, so they were not attacking healthy trees.  There were also a few limber pine trees in the stand, but they were doing less well.  My colleague, Steve, said that he thought the elevation was too low for the limber pine.

Speaking of Steve, he made my reconnaissance possible by loaning me a snowmobile.  In the picture below, Steve is extracting the snowmobile that he loaned me from the creek where I rolled it over on top of myself.  I told Steve that I was an experienced snowmobiler, but my actions soon proved to him that I was a liar.  Actually, I have used the machines a fair amount, but it has been under more controlled conditions—like where the snow was packed, the road was wide, and the power of the sled was measured in horses, not orbital rockets.  The pictured event was neither the first nor the last time that Steve got my snowmobile back in action while I licked my wounds and tried to gather my gear and my pride.  It was great to have access to the North Fork of North Creek, but, by the time I got home, I definitely looked like something the (artic) cat dragged in.