Every year The Mountaineers cut the little trees back that are growing on their ski slopes at Meany Lodge in Snoqualmie Pass. This year two things happened! First due to COVID the trees haven't been cut for two years and there are now hundreds of them. Second, Amy Deyerle-Smith invited us to come up to Meany and dig as many trees as we would like. I did a Saturday recon to the site and it did look promising with lots of 1 gal size trees.
June 5th, BJ Hedahl and I headed up to the Pass to collect what we could. When we got to Meany Lodge, we found that Amy had found another volunteer and the four of us headed up for the slopes. Between us we managed to dig up 100 trees and about 10 clumps of Bear Grass.
The selection ranged from Douglas Fir, Western White Pine, and Sitka Spruce. We brought the trees back to my house and I checked each one to make sure that they were replanted into the pot in good order and placed them all in my backyard garden where they will get lots of water through the summer. This Fall, We'll try planting the bigger trees and perhaps keep smaller ones to grow another year.
This has been fun but it is also a big experiment. Restorationists are already having discussions about Climate Change and sourcing our trees from say Oregon or California, where they are more used to a hotter dryer climate which we will soon have here in the Northwest. We are adding to the discussion by bringing trees from a higher elevation to a lower elevation. The bottom line is that it is a big experiment and we'll have to wait and see what happens!
Hope that they like the low lands.