[KarlK]

In 2021, the immense Cedar Creek fire west of Winthrop WA killed innumerable trees in premier areas for mountain biking, hiking and horseback riding (http://www.centralwashingtonfirerecovery.info/2021/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Cedar-Creek-Burned-Area-Report-Okanogan-Wenatchee-BAER.pdf) The first picture depicts the fire's plume from Engine 52 on July 25, and the second, taken from Don Hecker's place in Winthrop, shows intense burning on Virginian Ridge, replete with spectacular crown runs and torching. These were taken while working as a wildland firefighter on the nearby Cub Creek 2 fire north of Winthrop.

Cedar Creek Fire From Cub 2 Fire, July 25,2021 (Photo by KarlK)

Cedar Creek Fire on Virginian Ridge, July 25, 2021 (Photo by KarlK)

Weird Sky Over Cedar Creek Fire, August 21, 2021

Virginian Ridge is adjacent to Thompson Ridge, much of which experienced intense fire that devastated the forest encompasing a superb 12 mile mountain bike trail. The most severely affected trails include many other outstanding purpose-built mountain bike trails near the Sun Mountain Resort, with particulary severe damage to those located along the Thompson Pass road and Thompson Ridge area.

Burnt Forest on Thompson Ridge (KarlK Photo)

As a mountain biker with a particular fondness for the Sun Mountain / Thompson Ridge area, I recognized that the damage caused by the fire would affect my own recreational activities. However, I did not anticipate having substantial involvement in the post-fire hazard tree felling work on a host of the area's trails. To date these include the Gobbler's Knob/Thompson Ridge trail, Pete’s Dragon, Inside Passage, Goshawk, Climb-It, More Cowbell and Wolf Creek. Retired Seattle Firefighter and Winthrop resident Don Hecker and I do a lot of trail work in the Methow area, some mainly aimed at supporting the interests of Methow chapter of Backcountry Horsemen of Washington, and some focused mainly on biking and hiking trails maintained by the Methow Valley Trails Collaborative (MVTC; of which both BCHW and the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance (EMBA) are members (https://trailscollaborative.org/). Please consider donating money and / or time folks -- all that trail work is not done by Magic Trail Elves!.

Magic Elf Door

Don and I have been undergoing a substantial training and certification process to become qualified as tree fallers because we so frequently encounter dead trees that are guaranteed to topple over, and a non-trivial number are poised to injure or kill trail users, or merely do considerable damage to trail surfaces.

Felling Class in SE Oregon, April 14, 2021

Felling Class, April 15, 2022

Instructors at Felling Class, April 14, 2022

DonH, Getting His Certificate at Felling Class, April 15, 2022

The MVTC and its USFS agency partner are under considerable pressure to re-open a wealth of trails that are presently closed owing to the abundance of hazard trees. Wildland firefighting also entails a lot of saw work, with hazard snag falling being of particular importance to firefighter access and safety (about 7% of wildland firefighter deaths are ascribed to falling trees/rolling rocks [https://www.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pms841.pdf]).

KarlK, Muckamuck Fire (Photo by Richie Harvey

Rick and Kelly, Contract Fallers, Muckamuck Fire, August 20, 2021

The ratio of need to needed trail resources in the Methow is highly unfavorable. As such, Landon Decker, the Methow Ranger district's highly capable but swamped Trails Manager, and the small cadre of overworked collaborative employees were happy about getting some help from Don and me. For our part, this was a golden opportunity to develop greater skill at timber falling, an infinitely nuanced, often demanding and frequently dangerous but fascinating art form. As with any complex skill, the only way you can get good at it is to do a lot of it. And we have been doing a lot of it, with the added bonus of a lot of coaching along the way by extremely skilled sawyers. In particular, I've learned a lot from Remy Aucoin. He's a ski patroller in the winter, a serious mountain biker, and a professional trail builder for EMBA. Remy is a C-Faller / Evaluator with a firefighting background and a great deal of experience in felling hazardous fire-killed snags. Cody Olsen, the project manager for the Methow chapter of EMBA, and Remy, have a lot of experience working together on *really interesting* trail projects (see, e.g., their work on the Trans Cascadia race project: https://freehubmag.com/features/uncharted-territory).

Remy Aucoin Evaluating Cylinder Burned Tree, May22

Remy Putting in a Facecut on Cylinder Burned Tree, May 22

Remy Face Cut May 22

Remy Cylinder Burned Tree May 22

Remy Aucoin, Felling a Tree on Thompson Ridge, June 23, 2022

TO BE CONTINUED: I JUST GOT DISPATCHED TO A FIRE

[Brushbuffalo]

You guys are heroes, Karl!