Colorado's changing forests

[bdloftin77]

Where do you think the biggest trees in Colorado are? Or the oldest?

Oldest would be the Bristlecone Pines. Oldest near Craig, CO according to this article is almost 2,500 years old. https://www.5280.com/colorado-by-nature ... one-pines/

That article is in error. There are no bristecones around Craig. The reason for the error is that the oldest bristlecone is on Black Mountain in Pike National Forest near Guffey. Although the top Google search for Black Mountain Colorado brings up the Black Mountain by Craig, there are many Black Mountains in Colorado and the one with the bristecones is far from there (and Craig is far from anywhere in the Pike National Forest).

If you do enough research and some exploring, you might even be able to find said oldest known tree in Colorado! As well as the "oldest one near Pikes Peak." Pretty cool stuff.

[HikerGuy]

The San Juans do indeed hold the largest trees in Colorado, apparently the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico*.

*EDIT: Ooops. Aș mentioned below, I think this claim is for spruce/firs. Sorry about that. Those coastal redwoods are definitely taller.

https://www.americanforests.org/article ... e-numbers/

[Dave B]

The San Juans do indeed hold the largest trees in Colorado, apparently the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico.

https://www.americanforests.org/article ... e-numbers/

Hmmm, I would have thought that honor would go to the numerous 300+ foot stands of trees in the Sierra, and along the Pacific Coast.

[bdloftin77]

The San Juans do indeed hold the largest trees in Colorado, apparently the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico.

https://www.americanforests.org/article ... e-numbers/

Hmmm, I would have thought that honor would go to the numerous 300+ foot stands of trees in the Sierra, and along the Pacific Coast.

Maybe the tallest spruce/fir forests in the western hemisphere north of Mexico?

"The region’s subalpine firs demand their place in the sun. A few make between 100 and 110 feet with one reaching 118. Collectively, these exceptional spruce and fir represent what we think is
the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico. This astonishing statement is supported by no less an expert than Dr. Robert Van Pelt, forest ecologist and famed redwood researcher at the University of Washington."

[jrbren_vt]

The San Juans do indeed hold the largest trees in Colorado, apparently the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico.

https://www.americanforests.org/article ... e-numbers/

Hmmm, I would have thought that honor would go to the numerous 300+ foot stands of trees in the Sierra, and along the Pacific Coast.

Maybe the tallest spruce/fir forests in the western hemisphere north of Mexico?

"The region’s subalpine firs demand their place in the sun. A few make between 100 and 110 feet with one reaching 118. Collectively, these exceptional spruce and fir represent what we think is
the tallest forest growing in the western hemisphere north of Mexico. This astonishing statement is supported by no less an expert than Dr. Robert Van Pelt, forest ecologist and famed redwood researcher at the University of Washington."

Maybe he means tallest WRT sea level ?

[Anima]

Where do you think the biggest trees in Colorado are? Or the oldest?

An odd tree that comes to mind is along the Purgatory Flats approach to Chicago Basin. About half way between Cascade and Needleton there is an absolutely massive tree right along the trail. It was either a fir or spruce if I remember correctly. It has been a while since I've seen it and I don't have a picture. Definitely one of the bigger trees in Colorado, especially in the mountains. Its trunk diameter rivals those of many Plains Cottonwoods I see on eastern side of the state. Maybe someone has a picture of this tree or knows what I am talking about?

In terms of the biggest trees in the state, that title would almost unequivocally go to one of the many cottonwood varieties found at lower elevations. It would probably been in a town, on someones property, or next to a stream where it is being watered far more than just by the rain / snow melt.

[XterraRob]

Looks like some of the previous tallest trees succumbed to the 416 Fire, article mentions a 181-foot-tall blue spruce near Hermosa Creek that's still standing.

https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/ ... -416-fire/

[dwoodward13]

Hiking up Leviathan Creek drainage we ran across the biggest trees either of us had ever seen in Colorado. One of fallen ones was over 6 feet in diameter (taller on its side than me), and some of the ones still standing had to be close to 100 feet tall.

[Scott P]

Maybe the tallest spruce/fir forests in the western hemisphere north of Mexico?

It's not that either. The spruce and fir forests in the Pacific Northwest are definitely taller (and the trees much larger)

The coastal Douglas firs are taller and used to be the tallest trees in the world before the tallest ones were logged. The ones today are still over 300 feet high. Before they were logged, some were over 400 feet high.

a5716f8ce9db1334ecb748cc3b944ada.jpg (171.56 KiB) Viewed 457 times

The Sitka spruce are also taller than anything in Colorado, approaching 200 feet high.

I'm from Washington and the trees always look tiny in Colorado compared to there.

[Carl the Cuttlefish]

Of the forest problems across the western US, well over half of the cause is an almost century old Forest Service policy of fire suppression preventing even small fires from burning forests and reducing fuel loads. The result has been two fold: 1) stressed forests with too many weak and resource limited trees (making them more susceptible to insect infestations and drought related mortality) instead of fewer trees with adequate resources, and 2) a build up of fuels that has led to a massive increase in the number, size, and severity of wildfires. Climate change has exacerbated the issue for sure, but it's not the only signal driving the current shifts in forest health, structure, and species composition. One especially concerning trend in Colorado is high severity fires burning through overgrown and too-dense ponderosa forests. Ponderosa is not adapted to high-severity crown fires that kill all of their seed, hence most areas of ponderosa forest that have burned in the past decades have converted to grass/shrub lands rather than recovering to forest (e.g. Hayman burn area). Another example is Fourmile Canyon west of Boulder, take a drive through the overly dense ponderosa to the edge of the burn area which has not recovered at all in 12 years.

As far as monsoons go, the North American Monsoon is most definitely trending downward, and modeling suggests this trend will continue or worsen. I'm not sure the Pliocene fossil records reported in the paper summarized in the Wired article serve as a reliable analog to the Anthropocene, given the landscape and geology were quite different back then. And even if they were increasing, they'd have little impact on the current megadrought. In the SW "drought" is generally used to refer to hydrological drought, which is characterized by streamflow volumes and reservoir levels. All of which reached historic lows this past summer despite a record breaking monsoon season. Streamflow in the west is >70% snowmelt, with some studies showing monsoon rainfall making up as little as 4% of total streamflow. Increasing monsoon would be good for reducing fire risk, however.

Also, woody encroachment into shrublands/grasslands is a dire ecological problem and one where ranchers and ecologist tend to see eye-to-eye. Trees are not always good, especially in ecosystems not adapted to their presence or their more aggressive growth and water use patterns that can change hydrology and edge out keystone species. The sagebrush steppe is especially imperiled by woody encroachment which combined with shortening fire return intervals, invasive species, and climate change, is one of the most rapidly disappearing ecosystems in North America.

I'm not sure fires were smaller back in the day, though they were more numerous. There's reports of one going from Pikes Peak to Wilkerson Pass! They do keep forests in check, though I think humans can do better than lightning, so long as there's widespread and proactive approaches besides just quelching. Chainsaws > prescribed burns > natural burns.

I don't know what's gonna happen with the climate long term. We definitely are in a massive drought right now, so the current state was not the historical norm. Overall there's gonna be more warm moist air floating around, lets see if it hops over the mountains to CO.

To be fair though, the entire Rockies have been in a state of flux the last 20,000 years, so there has been a good period of rapid climate shifts. Maybe there used to be a lot more sagebrush land 10000 years ago? I think Black Forest may be an example of this outgrowth, Palmer logged it when he built the railroad 100+ years ago, but if you look at the trees there, the only old pink pines and big stumps are in basins, the higher up areas mostly younger trees, I think those may have been meadows previously. I know the forest continues to expand east.

[Carl the Cuttlefish]

That article is in error. There are no bristecones around Craig. The reason for the error is that the oldest bristlecone is on Black Mountain in Pike National Forest near Guffey. Although the top Google search for Black Mountain Colorado brings up the Black Mountain by Craig, there are many Black Mountains in Colorado and the one with the bristecones is far from there (and Craig is far from anywhere in the Pike National Forest).

Interesting! I've always wanted to hike that one, now there's an extra special reason why to do it.

Thank god for Conservation.

Yep! The exciting thing is that there are new tree records to be smashed in the upcoming years. Both in the east and west, logging of mature forests is way down, and there's lots of healthy trees working back up to the heights that were there before the axe. If you go to the Congaree National Park in SC it's apparent how small the current recent regrowth forests are, but the gap is closing each year.

[cougar]

There's a lot of logging around the Hayman burn scar, it seems a bit odd to effectively enlarge that barren area, or is it intended to restore the landscape in some way? It's well beyond thinning but not quite full blown clearcutting.