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In July of 2010, we were asked to participate in a lenghty questionaire concerning
our perceptions of the Beetle Kill in Grand County's lower elevation forests.
Much of the inquiry was into what we thought about the response by government
agencies. At the end of the survey there was a large blank space for respondees to
express their thoughts in free prose. Directly below is our response with a few additions.

Attention: Chad Looistra and Dr. Troy Hall
University of Idaho ...

A quick look back at Grand County's Beetlemania

For a five-year period, it was difficult to take pictures for customers of Mountain Lake Properties
without a lot red and orange trees interfering with the sales presentations. We are now well past
that point. The gray trees do not look so bad; nor does a gray forest from a distance. A huge silver
lining is the fact that a great many of the properties we sell now have appealing lake and mountain
views where before they had almost no such view. On the negative side, there is far less screening
from neighbor to neighbor.

Our customers have had to endure a lot of private tree maintenance costs at their own expense.
What they have now, however, is views plus a better and more diversified forest. The lodgepole
pine that the beeles have removed were rather low on the beauty scale, even at their prime
when compared to most other evergreen species. Landscapers have almost never used them.

Our observations of the backcountry is that there also, a stronger and richer forest is coming into being.

The loss of so many trees has allowed wind velocity and wind gusts to be more extreme.
This has caused a great many of the remaining healthy trees to be snapped, which is pretty frustrating.
Be that as it may, there are a fantastic number of young trees growing between all of the dead trees.

In the main forests, the dead trees should be allowed to fall and remain as they are. Any effort
to use machinery to remove trees will cause invasive weeds to proliferate and create hot and
dry areas. The mechanical removal of trees tends to cause new seedlings to grow at a density
that is much greater than occurs where nothing has been done. This is familiar phenomenon
along roadsides and also in the few burn areas we do have. Human intervention needs to be
followed by even more intervention in terms of weed control and tree thinning.

The primary things that our new and upcoming forest need are Rain and Snow -- a bit
above average would be ideal, with no drought intervals. Consistent precipitation and
fewer windstorms are all we need. These are global phenomena that we humans can do
nothing about on the local level. To pretend otherwise is narcissistic / megalomaniacal;
one might as well believe that one can control the spots on the sun.

The original cause of the severity of the outbreak may be in part due to human activities
on a global scale. Be that as it may, there is not much that can be done to change that
within just Grand County.

An interesting case in point is the following. At the beginning of the severe beetle outbreak,
there was a large section of National Forest destroyed in an area called Knight's Ridge,
near the eastern reach of Lake Granby on its north side. Your reporter here (and long time
Grand County residient) repeatedly hoped for lightning to strike this area and set it on fire.
The lightning never touched down and the Forest Service was far from contemplating a
controlled burn there. I was tempted to set it on fire myself because I knew that the beetles
would quickly move northward into Rocky National Park up along Shadow Mountain Lake
and on into Grand Lake. Of course, I did nothing.

I realized however that it is the existence of Lake Granby itself that is suppressing the
chance of a wildfire occurring in the forests around it. Where the lake is now, there
used to be big open grassy areas dotted by a few tall trees and small groves; it was
classic country for lighting to strike and start a small blaze. Now it's all inflammable
water, as are also some of the irrigated ranch lands nearby during lightning season.

There is no turning back of the clock on western water management and its unanticipated
consequences. Next to nothing can be done to change that now.

I marked on the questionnaire that I would strongly support industries that can use the trees
that can be conveniently extracted (the ones that are close to roads and power lines for
instance). However, I am painfully aware that by the time bureaucrats finish studying a
problem and implementing or permitting a plan, they are ten years too late and out of sync
with the new problems that are at their door. I am not just being cynical. It is a fact that in
Grand Country, the optimum time to harvest the trees has already long passed while
government experts and committees are just now figuring out what hit them.

If we get a generous amount of rain and snow, the new forest is going to be gorgeous
without us humans doing a thing. If we have a drought, we can't do much about that.
If we remove a lot of trees or do burns and a drought occurs, desertification will occur
in exactly the areas we were trying to help. If we do nothing, the fallen and still standing
trees will at least create a bit of shade.

A concern that your questionnaire does not address directly is the need for increased trail
maintenance. As far as I know, there has been no funding increase to manage all of the additional
trees that are falling down across the paths. This includes other species of trees much higher up
that are not beetle killed yet are in the path of vicious wind gusts that are now frequent because
the lower elevation forest is not there to moderate the wind. In twenty years, the new forest will
be back and this will be not so much of a problem. The increased funding for trail maintenance
(so that people can get into the forests and experience them) needs to be for the next ten years only.

In the winter, I can snowmobile directly from my door through old logging roads in the
National Forest to Grand Lake. In a number of areas along the ten mile route, the Forest
Service has extracted patches of trees. When the snow is really deep, these will be popular
play areas for visitors and second homeowners in the future. Unfortunately, the current method
of tree clearing is quite messy; thousands of logs are left helter-skelter at odd and potentially
dangerous angles. People are going to get their snowmobile skis caught in the debris and get hurt.
In the summer, the areas that have been "managed" look quite ratty. While the machinery was up
there, there should have been a bit of industrial raking and pushing of the debris piles to the edges
of patches. It takes about four feet of snow to naturally compact these messy looking managed areas.
It is not often that we have that much snow, so most of the time the managed areas look pretty bad.

Thank you for your attention. If you browse through our hundreds of property presentations
and also our virtual hikes into the National Forests and Park, one can see examples of what
is being expressed here. .. Main Menu .. to Scenery page .. to Real Estate presentations.

Scroll down for links to beautiful forests here and on the other side of the world.

Lost Trail to Wheeler Basin "Garden of the Pinnacles"
A July of 2010 reminder that if you wish to immerse yourself in a rich and primordial
forest, its right in your big front yard in Grand County.

a search for Grand Lake's sister village in the Himalayas
A glimpse into the majestic forests of Bhutan.

A day in Tibet at a lake with much in common with Grand Lake!
A journey into a part of China that felt a bit like going back fifty years to Grand Lake.

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