On my way back from working on one of my exclosure fences I stopped to photograph some of the many dead aspen trees visible along highway 180. I generally try to stay clear of these large aspen mortality sites as they're extremely dangerous to walk around in due to the dead standing trees that are now starting to come down. Just brushing against one of the trunks could dislodge a limb, called a "widow-maker" for obvious reasons, causing it to crash down on you. And for me at least these are not "happy" places to be hanging out in, filled with sadness and melancholy.
This stand is near milepost 229 and is about two acres in size. Most of these trees died after a late season frost event defoliated them in June of 1999. They had already leafed-out when the cold snap hit and they just couldn't deal with it. Subsequent drought years in the 2000's further weakened the survivors, allowing insects to finish them off. Mortality at this site looks to be nearing 100%.
Some still show scars from bears or elk on their bark.
Here are a few more pictures of the dead aspen stand.
After these trees died the aspen clone living here would've immediately tried to regenerate by sending up root suckers from the extensive root system under the forest floor. If they had survived, the subsequent sapling population here would've been quite spectacular. There should be hundreds of ten to fifteen foot tall saplings shooting up in this sunny area. In fact, you shouldn't be able to see through the grove for all the saplings.
Unfortunately, browsing by elk prevented this and most of the clone has now died. I saw only a few first year saplings hiding under downed logs and in the tall grass.
One of the saplings I found showed clear evidence of recent browsing.
A few of the mature trees still survive here, but they look very unhealthy. One appeared to be in mid-death, it's bark rotted and peeling off. Sadly, the top of this tree doesn't realize that it's dead. It's likely that come next year there will be yet another dead snag here.
This aspen stand is all-but-dead, but it's just one small grove on a really big forest, right? After all, there are plenty of healthy mature aspen still visible from the highway, right?
Not so fast.
It's only when you look back along the highway from the right angle do you see the true scale of what's happened here. What we've been looking at up to now is just an outlier on the edge of a very large aspen stand of a hundred acres or more going back into the forest as far as you can see. All of it dead or dying.
This is not small scale. This is landscape scale. It's big. And it's happening fast.
By the way, if you don't believe me about how these aspen would be regenerating now if the elk weren't browsing the saplings, then take a look at this picture I snapped just across the highway from the above scene, this time looking the other way into one of the Forest Service's aspen exclosures:
This is part of the same aspen stand, only across the highway and inside a tall fence. The only difference is the elk were prevented from browsing the sapling regeneration.
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