Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- And Now, Back to Your Local News…Since the weather’s getting better, I’m sure we’re all totally jonesing to get onto the trails, but in general, they’re a mess. It’s a bummer to see nice singletracks get trashed and widened, so like all of you, I’m grinding my teeth in annoyance while I try to be patient. The good news is that you [...] […]
- Downieville, Take ThreeOkay, well, things went pretty haywire in race promotion after the registration debacle. The organizer received so many hateful emails and comments about the mishap that it made him wonder if he should even bother putting the race on. I can’t blame him, really. In his shoes I might do the same thing. It sounds [...] […]
- And Now, Back to Your Local News…
- Edgy Veggie
Beetle-kill wood from Colorado is hard to come by
Boulder-based Berlin Flooring recently replaced flooring at the Chautauqua Ranger Cottage with Colorado beetle-kill pine wood. Other groups have had a hard time finding contractors who use local beetle-kill pine wood. (Nicholas Duckworth )
More than 40,000 acres of forest in Boulder County have been devastated by pine beetles — and more than 1.5 million acres across the state.
That’s a lot of dead trees. And, it seems, a lot of people are interested in using wood from beetle-kill trees for flooring, furniture and paneling. But as it turns out, it’s easier (and cheaper) to get beetle-kill wood — which has a pleasant blue stain — from other Western states with larger existing lumber industries than from Colorado.
Compared to Canada and other states with more established lumber industries, Colorado has smaller mills, fewer logging arterial roads and skinnier diameter trees. Canada beats the market in price and quantity for many reasons, including subsidy programs, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.
The end result for Colorado is a smaller variety of finished beetle-kill wood products, higher prices and fewer finishing capabilities — like kiln-dried as opposed to air-dried. Many contractors demand kiln-dried beetle-kill wood for its resiliency. Read more
Camelscaping: Rent camels, fight off invasive species
Ah, yes, the high plains camel. Majestic, really, with his untroubled stare and his precarious and stupefying perch atop Delicate Arch; the original inspiration for the mountain biker’s friend, the Camelbak, the high plains camel himself is quite a cyclist.
HEY, GUYS! | flickr user tarksiala
OK, so camels seem pretty out of place here. But that’s the idea: Read more
Rocky Mountain National Park is one of 25 most at risk from climate change
Lion Lake No. 1 in Rocky Mountain National Park’s Wild Basin, with Mount Alice and Chiefs Head Peak standing tall in the distance. Photo by Broomfield Enterprise.
In the future, there may be fewer snow-capped peaks to gaze at in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The meadows on the west side of the park may change as the climate warms and dries, making them less hospitable to moose and pine martens, and aspens across the park may disappear along with the plants that call the tundra home.
These are the dire predictions of a report released yesterday by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which called climate change “the greatest threat ever” to national parks.
The report, called National Parks in Peril, listed the 25 parks most at risk of climate change and included two in Colorado: RMNP and Mesa Verde.
From the report’s Colorado fact sheet:
Mesa Verde is vulnerable to a loss of water, more downpours and floods, a loss of plant communities, a loss of wildlife, and a loss of cultural resources. Rocky Mountain is vulnerable to a loss of ice and snow, a loss of water, more downpours and floods, a loss of plant communities, a loss of wildlife, more crowding, a loss of fishing, and more air pollution. Other parks in Colorado, including Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, and Dinosaur National Monument, face similar vulnerabilities. Read more
Rocky Mountain aspens could disappear by 2090
Colorado aspens in full fall colors | Photo by Mark Leffingwell
Foresters are still puzzling over why aspens in the Rocky Mountains are dying, a phenomenon that scientists are calling “sudden aspen decline,” or SAD.
But whatever the reason — many are blaming the added stresses of climate change — the situation doesn’t look good.
In Colorado, the number of acres with sick aspens — which drop their leaves, are ravaged by insects and can’t reproduce — has quadrupled between 2006 and 2008 to more than 850 acres, according to an article published by Reuters.
“What we think will happen is that aspen will disappear in some areas and there will not be anything we can do about it,” said SAD expert Wayne Shepperd of Colorado State University.
A study by scientists with the federal Rocky Mountain Research Station in Moscow, Idaho presented just such a scenario. It predicted the near total disappearance of aspen in the Rocky Mountain region by 2090.
The research, to be published in Forest Ecology and Management, links ailing aspen to global climate change and concludes that up to 41 percent of Western forests would be unable to support aspen by 2030. That figure would rise to 75 percent by 2060 and as much as 94 percent in 2090.
Read the full story at www.reuters.com, check out information from the U.S. Forest Service about sudden aspen decline, or learn about what Boulder County is doing to preserve aspen stands after the jump. Read more
Boulder’s haze caused by California’s fires
This map provided by the National Weather Service shows the smoke drifting into Colorado at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The arrows were added by local meteorologist Matt Kelsch.
The hazy skies smudging views of the Flatirons in Boulder are the result of wildfires burning to the West, including the massive fire in Southern California that has charred 122,000 acres.
“It’s the California fires, but also fires in Utah and Colorado,” said local meteorologist Matt Kelsch. “It’s all kind of mixed together in the plume of smoke.”
The winds above the mountains are coming directly from the West, said Kelsch, carrying the smoke thousands of miles.
“How long the smoke is around depends on how long the winds continue,” Kelsch said. “A rainstorm would wash it out, but right now, there’s just a very small chance of rain. We’re probably going to see these smoky conditions for awhile.”
Rocky Mountain National Park gets blitzed
About a hundred people showed up Wednesday to collect water samples from streams, rivers and lakes scattered throughout Rocky Mountain National Park for the second annual WaterBlitz.
When the samples are tested, scientists at the University of Colorado hope to learn how beetle-killed trees and global warming might be affecting the park.
Read more about the WaterBlitz at DailyCamera.com or check out the video above.
Idaho talks wolf hunt
Gray wolf, AP file photo
Following the federal government’s announcement that gray wolves in Idaho and Montana would be removed from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, officials from both states said they planned to host wolf hunts this fall to cull the animals.
Now, Idaho has announced plans to reduce its wolf population to almost half its size:
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Department of Fish and Game commissioners may phase in state hunting quotas for wolves as part of efforts to reduce their numbers to 518, about half the estimated 1,000 predators now roaming the state.
Jim Unsworth, the agency’s deputy director, said Wednesday the population goal set a year ago remains “biologically and socially” responsible.
Read more
