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#10 Will Hatcher at 3rd forest stop

Will Hatcher, Tribal Forester: We’ve got an aspen patch here, and this is all sitting within a moist, mixed conifer stand. From the pictures, you can see the larger trees have basically been removed from here. You’ve got a few large pines over there. You’ve got a huge buildup of fir coming up in the under story. The densities here are, again, much higher than they were historically, and our management would remove particularly the white fir in here. There’s… I can see 3 species of white fir. I’m finding Douglas fir in here. We’d want to protect most of these pines that are coming up, although this is a mixed conifer stand, a moist, mixed conifer, a pine could occupy up to 50% to 60% of this stand. As far as the aspen patch, it looks fairly healthy. You’ve got some trees dying out. The problem with this aspen patch though is we’ve got these white fir growing in underneath them, and I’d say probably in, I don’t know 20 to 30 years, the white fir are going to start knocking this aspen patch out, and so our management would basically come in and take out probably all of the white fir, throw some fire in here, and watch it rejuvenate, I’m talking about the meadow.

Rick Ward, Wildlife Biologist: This is the good end. If you look down at the other end, a lot of the older trees are dead, and there are a lot of young ones coming in here in this particular spot, but yeah, the white fir are starting to move in. There is also a lot of  schooler willow in this stand, which is…There is a little bit right here, and there’s a big one right down there, and also excellent big game forage. This one close to us looks pretty good. The one down there looks a little old, and again a fire-dependent species. The meadow is actually in pretty good shape, you know, I showed you the picture of the one with the encroachment. This one doesn’t really have an encroachment issue. There are some fats built up in it, and a fire would do it wonders. I mean, look how succulent and great this growth is over here, it kind of peters out as you get out in the meadow. You could definitely rejuvenate that, but overall this is a pretty cool spot. It does need a little help. I walked through this the other day. There are tons of deer beds back in there. It’s just game trails in this spot.

Man: …a big bull elk standing… …mechanical mowing.

Hatcher: No, in here you wouldn’t have to do mechanical mowing. There’s no brush competition to deal with here. You would do it with thinning trees and fire. The large mountain behind us is Saddle Mountain.

Man: We’re at a pretty good elevation here, about 5000 feet or so.

Hatcher: Yeah, we’re probably about 52 to 53 I’d say. Once you start getting up into the fir country, you raise up in the elevation and the moisture gradient.

Man: These are jack pines that are here, not a ponderosa pine?

Hatcher: No, these are ponderosa pine, young-growth ponderosa pine.

Man: It’s a lot different looking bark than …

Hatcher: It’s because they’re young. When their young, their bark is black, and as they mature, they start taking on a cinnamon color, and then eventually the yellow flat-plated bark.

Becky Hyde: Where are we going next Will?

Hatcher: Next we are going to go about 10 miles and drop down into, starting into the Sprague River Valley, and we’ll stop there and just kind of take a look at some of the stand-replacement fires.