We all celebrate the holiest of times in the Interior West- Elk Season- at different times. In honor of second season Colorado, we will take off until October 28th.
At that time we will take up Chapter 4, which is really about changes in forests and forest species through time, as well as changes in climate. So if you have particular thoughts, yard them up and be ready to go on the 28th. If you are not hunting or going to the SAF Convention, and would like to summarize your thoughts on the chapter as a post, you are welcome to do so! Send to me.
My old boss, Rick Cables, used to refer to this time away as his “spiritual retreat.” Hoping that you and your freezers are both refreshed when we return.
Forest Policy Pub Book Club 
I found that chapter very interesting though often I have to read it twice to figure out what the point he is trying to make, even when he tells it.
But I look at it this way. You can’t preserve nature because it is in constant state of change, even if that change takes tens, or hundreds of years. You can try to conserve areas, so natural processes can take place, but never know what you is going to happen.
I am going to describe my resent trip up in the Siskiyou National Forest to view one of the areas where the Biscuit fire burn intensely and pretty much incinerated everything the fire touched.
(I would also like to state that my opinion of the Biscuit fire is that is was one greatest destructions of our National Forests lands that ever took place. I place the responsibility of the destruction of hundreds of thousands of acres of mature forests and valuable habitat squarely on the shoulder of the Forest Service. They could of put the fire out before it got out of control and they didn’t. They then preceded to light backburns that incinerated whole watersheds.)
I was amazed at all the growth going on in the area I viewed. This area I visited is know as Fish Hook Mountain and Indigo prairie. This area is fairly high up, it is the highest mountain in the area and faces the ocean. Trees grow well there. This is only one small part of the area the burned in the Biscuit fire. I don’t know what the other areas look like.
My impression was that there were all kinds of things going on this hillside. Some places were full of Douglas fir trees like dog hair. Some places had manzanita and tan oak over your head.
Some places looked like a park with perfect spacing of trees. Some places had gone to grass.
There was very little bare ground. On the higher reaches of the mountain there seemed to be less trees, some places none, lower down there seemed to be more brush, but then looking closer, you could see trees coming through.
I couldn’t tell any difference between the areas that had been logged and those that hadn’t, except of course those standing dead snags that seem to be deteriorating rapidly. Maybe the brush and trees were a little higher in the areas that hadn’t been logged. It was almost impossible to fine the skid trails left by dragging the logs during harvest. I didn’t not see any damage that logging caused. I thought this was a good example of how post fire timber salvage doesn’t harm the forest.
It was also a good example of how nature, is really all mixed up. I did notice some sugar pine seedling growing up higher than I had notice before, also some Douglas fir on the cold north slopes high up where before there was only noble fir. Goble warming? Who knows.
Nature is very dynamic and complex, no one answer fits all.
I felt good knowing that someday there could be a forest again in this area.and always sadden by the destruction that took place.
Stump.. did you take any photos?
Yes, I did, lots, but they never turn out as good as they seem at them time. I would be willing to send you some, seems like your email is somewhere on the site. I still don’t know how to post a picture.