Field Work

As I mentioned last week, I've had a Douglas fir stand on the forest picked out for a while, but have been waiting for the snow to go.  It remains a bit wet and mucky out there, but the lower part of the stand is open enough to start work.  EDO was with me yesterday, so it meant that she did most of the work:  She carried the saw, ran the saw, and drove the increment borer.  I made pictures.

It is going to be an interesting stand.  I expected to find older live trees and some relict dead Doug fir in the understory, similar to what I have been finding in the Book Cliffs.  But, it is completely the opposite:  The live trees are merely 100 years old and the relicts are Gambel oak, aspen, and Rocky Mountain maple.  This was, apparently, a shrub field circa 1910.  At any rate, we have eleven new samples to process and should know more when that is done.

On the Ledge

Yesterday, I was able to scramble to this small ledge half-way up from Alrad Canyon.  From there I made my way along the ledge to a point where I could drop back to the valley and down a washed-out road to the Chev, turning the scramble into a loop.  Along with the good views, there was a lot of nice old wood.

Moving to the Forest

Last week, I was in the Book Cliffs looking for dead wood.  This week, I want to move my work to the National Forest.  Thus far, the snow has been too deep, but, after a few 70F degree days, things are starting to open up.  I'm interested in this north-facing Douglas fir stand overlooking Bob Wright Canyon.  As the pictures show, the south-facing slopes are snow free, but my area of interest still requires a little post-holing:  My boots were wet when I got back to the Chev.  At any rate, I sampled one tree with the increment borer and, barring a late season blizzard, I should be able to start working out there later this week or next.

Dead Wood

In the winter, I was collecting live tree cores in a mixed Douglas fir and pinyon pine stand in the Book Cliffs.  The longest cores that I brought back to the lab were about 350 to 370 years old:  Germinating in say, 1650.  To go beyond that, I have begun experimenting with dead wood.  The stand has been disturbed by fire, insects, and tree cutting over the past several hundred years.  Trees have died, but the wood remains.  So far, I have a piece of Douglas fir for which I was able to determine a germination date of 1303, about 720 years ago.  Yesterday, I was out looking for more.  I got another good sample of Douglas fir (above), but the real revelation was three separate Rocky Mountain juniper trees (below).