Manila Discussion archive for:
  • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
  • 9/15/07; 6:38:32 PM ¦ by Dan Butler
  • Wonderful photo, Donovan! Gee, I thought logging was the only way our national forests got destroyed... It's too bad the general public isn't better informed on the historical facts of fire and regeneration.
  • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
  • 9/15/07; 9:40:28 PM ¦ by Pete Giordano
  • Wow! That is certainly an impressive fire! Makes me appreciate that area even more now. I'm going to pass that photo along to some of my kayaking buds who like Roaring River because of the pristine forest. I keep telling them it hasn't been logged but there aren't that many old trees.

    I am amazed at how tuned in you guys on the site are to the history of the Clack area. Speaking as someone who works on the river almost every day, I love getting more and more info about the area. Makes me feel even more privledged to spend so much time in the Clackamas Drainage.

    Thanks so much.

    pete
  • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
  • 9/17/07; 11:59:53 AM ¦ by Karl Helser
  • Ahhh..... The North Signal Butte, one of my favorite places in the Clackamas District, as well as the South Butte and the area in between. Donovan, you should post the current shot showing after seeding & planting. If you need it, I've got it.

    In the distance I spy Hood, Adams, Rainier, and of coarse, the "whole" St Helens.
    • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
    • 9/18/07; 7:05:40 AM ¦ by Robert Koscik
    • Interestingly, there are still pockets of old growth thru all the desolation.  Straight south of Hambone Butte and towards the Roaring River there are scattered old growth groves intersperced thru the 2nd growth.  Lots of silver firs up around the Abbot Road in sheltered bowls that escaped the fires as well.  It's cool to hike down the canyon and see evidence of the fires 100 years ago, blackened logs etc.  Very interesting to see how well things have recovered from the natural disturbance of 100 years!  But the fires didn't return the land to as early a stage of succession as clearcuts and cat-dug slash piles, which destroy the important duff layer that has built up for eons, so recovery is faster.  Also interesting to travel west and see the forest composition change, from pines and silver firs to douglas firs, cedars and noble firs.  All the components of the next generation of forest are already there waiting for the next round of fires, from fungus to vine maple, hiding in the dirt.
      • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
      • 9/18/07; 7:18:06 AM ¦ by Tom Kloster
      • I'm of a similar mindset, Robert. Somewhere in between the catastrophic fires shown in the USFS photos of the 1030s and today's almost complete coverage with second-growth forest is probably the closest to what a balanced system should look like - Signal Buttes and Indian Ridge are a pretty good goal, in my mind, in terms of using fire to manage the ecosystem, with plenty of open ridgetops maintained through periodic burning.

        Last year's Bluegrass fire was a big plus for Bluegrass Ridge, and will create a lot of new browse habitat along the ridge where it was allowed to burn. I'd love to see similar fires allowed to burn along the Salmon-Huck ridges, the Bull Run/Lost Lake divide and Waucoma Ridge, and so on.

        There are more historic photo pans over here:

        http://narademo.umiacs.umd.edu/cgi-bin/isadg/viewseries.pl?seriesid=1445

        Get 'em while they're hot - these are on a university site, not USFS, so they could disappear at any time. Another eye-opener are the views of the West Fork Hood River valley, largely a private forest - as viewed from Hiyu Mountain and Lost Lake Butte. By the 1930s, it was almost completely cleared by logging.

        Tom
          • Re: Roaring River before seeding and planting (#)
          • 9/18/07; 7:49:44 PM ¦ by Tom Kloster
          • I agree - I was referring to the effects of fire suppression and practice of clear-cutting in creating even-aged stands. I'm a strong supporter of the thinning projects underway through the forest right now. As far as I'm concerned, that should be the extent of the USFS timber program for the next several decades - along with decommissioning failing roads and expanding recreational improvements. Just a few of my modest demands for my forests... ;-)

            -Tom