A hard hat-wearing crew invaded Bald Mountain this week, armed with chainsaws to mount a battle against declining forest health—and incidentally provide more tree-skiing terrain.
The workers, contracted out of Washington state by the Sawtooth National Forest, were given the task of removing some of the dead trees and thinning a 17-acre stand between Limelight and the Challenger lift line, just above and below the I-80 cat track.
"There's a lot of forest health issues on the mountain," said Jim Rineholt, forester for the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
Bark beetles and mistletoe are the forest's biggest threats, Rineholt said, and while these issues are prevalent throughout the Sawtooth National Forest, the pressure to keep Baldy pristine is heightened because it is so visible and recognizable.
"When people see dead trees up there, they kind of freak out," Rineholt said.
This weeklong thinning project, which ended Thursday, was one of the first projects outlined for the area by the Sun Valley Co.'s Bald Mountain Master Development Plan. The plan, approved in 2005 and updated in 2007, identifies 150 stands of trees on Baldy and lists management plans for each of them.
Tree thinning, Rineholt said, can make up for years of fire suppression on Baldy. He said the crew's goal was to separate the crowns of the subalpine fir trees by 12-15 feet, cutting down on competition and leaving the remaining trees much healthier. A second goal of the project is to reduce wildfire fuels.
Workers were told not to remove any trees shorter than 2 feet or larger than 7 inches in diameter, and focus on subalpine fir, not the more threatened Douglas firs or whitebark pines. Reducing the competition from conifers will also help aspen stands expand and increase the diversity of the forest, Rineholt said.
Healthier trees could also help prevent the spread of bark beetles, Rineholt said. While healthy trees can produce enough sap to either drown the beetles or force them from beneath the bark, trees that are stressed by fire or competing too strenuously for resources cannot produce enough resin to protect themselves.
Ketchum District Ranger Kurt Nelson said other thinning and forest health projects prescribed by the master development plan are planned for the future, but that the Forest Service will monitor the effects of the current project before applying for more funding.
The operation was funded by a grant from the Forest Service's Forest Health Protection program.
The work should also improve tree skiing.
"It opens the stands up so you can see down through them much more, but it's still going to be tight in there from a skiing standpoint," Nelson said.
However, he said the crew was told to keep stumps and slash below 18 inches so it's out of the way of skiers.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Gene Jacks, a worker with Scholls Fire and Fuels Management, cuts down a tree near the top of Bald Mountain to prevent overcrowding. Photo by David N. Seelig
