Hopefully, that title made the reader a bit curious as to why they shouldn’t run in the woods in Northeastern Wyoming. It’s because you might step on a snake and run away like a crazy person while your coworker laughs at your misfortune and entertaining reaction. This happened to me and I hope it doesn’t happen to you! Following in the trend of unfortunate occurrences, I have a poison ivy rash. This is interesting because there is essentially no poison ivy on this side of the state of Wyoming.  Last weekend, my coworker and I stopped at a trail-head in Custer State Park (South Dakota) where it was growing like gangbusters. I managed to take a picture and get out without touching it…or so I thought. I’m now nursing some itchy bumps and wishing I had more sense and luck when it comes to poison ivy. Again, don’t let this happen to you!

Poison Ivy in South Dakota

I will now move on to some of the more positive things that have happened since I last posted here. Sara and I attended a Society of American Foresters meeting in the Big Horn Mountains a few weeks ago. After driving for over 3 hours and going around some frightening switchbacks up a mountain, we arrived right on time to meet in a parking lot under a large rock formation, called Steamboat Rock. We talked about recent happenings in forestry during lunch and then jumped into our trucks and followed the leader to a recent timber sale! This was really exciting because I had yet to walk around a finished timber sale in Wyoming, let alone a clear cut of lodge-pole pine! It was kind of amazing hearing about the challenges they faced in carrying out the cutting – which they did on foot with chainsaws…in 4 feet of snow. Imagine trying to cut a tree so the stump is only a few inches above the ground in snow that deep. I was very impressed. However, after hearing about the lodge-pole pine trees they sold, I was filled with so much pride for our ponderosa pine trees in the Black Hills. Apparently, aside from our trees being more beautiful in the Black Hills, ours also grow twice as fast and twice as large. I guess we’re just lucky. We left the meeting in the Bighorns with a few more friends in Wyoming forestry and a lot more local knowledge of the timber industry in this part of the country.

Society of American Foresters meeting. Notice the lodge-pole pine trees in the background.

Steamboat Rock in the Big Horns.

Slash-pile from the timber sale (tops and branches from merchantable trees).

The final subject I’ll touch on is how great our first forest project is going. Background: The project name is Bear Run and the chief goals are to improve winter habitat for mule deer and to reduce fuel loads by thinning trees. So far we have re-drawn the parcel map for the project, began painting boundaries, began marking Stream Management Zones, and painted leave-trees in an acre demonstration plot in the largest unit. We did some timber cruising and surveying to find how many trees we had per acre and decided how much we wanted to take out in order to reduce fuel loads, while keeping habitat for mule deer. I should also mention that there are quite a few ponderosa pines that exhibit old growth characteristics like old age, a gnarly/twisted appearance, and flat-topped vs. pointy-topped. Bottom line is: this is a really cool project and I’m having so much fun! I’m sure things are only going to get crazier and more fun and I can’t wait to share it all with you in a few weeks.

Standing on a steep and rocky Mountain Mahogany meadow at Bear Run. A view to die for!

Old-growth Ponderosa Pine tree. Notice the gnarly appearance, large girth, and flat-top.

That’s all for now,
Andee