I was on a camping trip last week and one of the stops was at Crater Lake National Park. Within the park are “The Pinnacles”, where I saw this interesting tree, standing out, because of its color. It almost looks like one of those fake tree cell towers. I’m guessing that this is a red fir, on the edge of its elevation range. Of course, we’re all happy about phenotypic plasticity when we look at someone we find attractive.
Also on that trip, I visited Subway Cave, on my old Ranger District at Hat Creek, on the Lassen NF. It is a lava tube where two roof collapses allow you to walk in one way and walk out the other end. A very nice place to stop for lunch.
I was up on the Umpqua – Willamette divide this weekend looking at some areas we had fire salvaged.
I was surprised to see all these pine seedlings in area were previously there where none, it was high enough that the previous forests was mostly Douglas and Noble fir, climate change?
Hope the smoke didn’t get you too much around Crater Lake, another good example of how the FS
can take a lighting strike and turn into 21,000 acre burn.