Pine Beetle Kill

[whipski]

I figure it's either gonna burn up on the hill or in my stove. The huge kill off around here is making for some pretty easy wood gathering. I also hate giving money to the fossil fuel industry( scoundrels). FWIW a friend who was a regional forester for the Service out of Pagosa (retired) remarked that the climax forests around Wolf Creek are particularly devastating as they were not mixed species and ages so regeneration will take centuries. Conversely he noted that once the needles came off the trees the powder skiing improved dramatically as the former forest floor was uniformly covered. No tree bombs or wells. Undeniably the planet is currently heating up regardless of the cause. I'm particularly happy the base of my resort sits at 11,000 feet. Even with only 65% of average snow pack,
I skiied a bunch of good pow this year.

[bodywhomper]

Drought and available water for too many trees/biomass been the big thing attributed to the large western pine beetle outbreak in the Sierra and socal ranges. Warmer winters allowed for more life cycles per year. A forest with a lack of diversity is another. That's per an entomologist usda researcher giving a talking circuit throughout the Sierra. He was seeing drought as the biggest factor and a direct correlation in CA when the meteorological drought lessened in the northern western Sierra but had not diminished in the southern western Sierra.

A local forester (RFP) who works from the foothills to the crest was seeing lots of beetle kills where the trees weren't pitching out because they did not have enough water.

During peak of the drought in CA, local logger/millers by me were commenting that they were dropping living and non-beetle infested large pondo pines and the crowns were "dry" and already "checked", reducing the usability and value of the timber.

I believe it's similar for the trees affected by mountain pine beetle.

On the Sierra western slope, the expected habitat conversion is shrubbery with a lot of invasives.