Backcountry/Sidecountry Pruning: OK or Not?

[thetrailboss]

The NIMBYism these days is sometimes just intolerable. I understand how it would be improper to thin forests on someone else's land, because it's their private land and they have access to it, but the amount of "damage" we might be doing by removing thorn bushes and fallen logs and < 2 inch saplings to create a path through the forest is really inconsequential. Our society permits people to become offended about the most minor things. Who is actually harmed when we (with permission or on our own land) do some minor trimming (not clear cutting) to clear out otherwise unskiable routes?

So you would not be upset if someone came onto your private land and did some "trimming"? And it's not really a NIMBY concern. The cutting, as a whole, is causing some damage. Here's one article that considers that issue: http://www.thesnowway.com/ski/VermontLifeWinter09TrailCutting.pdf

I'm just curious as to people's thoughts on a hot summer day.

 

[BeefyBoy50]

So you would not be upset if someone came onto your private land and did some "trimming"? And it's not really a NIMBY concern. The cutting, as a whole, is causing some damage. Here's one article that considers that issue: http://www.thesnowway.com/ski/VermontLifeWinter09TrailCutting.pdf

I'm just curious as to people's thoughts on a hot summer day.

My point wasn't clear the way I worded it. I certainly think that someone with the intention of thinning should get permission, it would be wrong to trespass and work on someone else's property. What I mean by NIMBYism is that there is, in my opinion, far too much opposition to even small projects these days. For instance, ski areas have to publish incredibly lengthy documents for permission to build nearly anything, and these documents have to go through numerous thorough checkpoints before work can even commence. As another example, if we expressed support for something even as insignificant as a new hiking trail in some of our wild regions of the northeast, we would have to wait ages before actual advances were made on the project. For this reason, we will never get a new ski area and have to wait decades for minor expansions. I wish society could be slightly less restrictive about projects such as these that happen in our wild places. The main reason people decide on cutting or thinning without permission or against the law is because they know this type of mindset is the reason they will not be allowed to do any kind of project of this sort.

 

[from_the_NEK]

The main reason people decide on cutting or thinning without permission or against the law is because they know this type of mindset is the reason they will not be allowed to do any kind of project of this sort.

Agreed.

The examples in the article Trailboss linked to are at the extreme end of the "pruning" spectrum. Big Jay has been hacked to bits. There aren't just a few thinned lines out there. Practically the entire side of the mountain that has been thinned. That is not good or sustainable. The examples of widespread thinning off of the Catamount trail and adjacent to other ski areas are also on the extreme end.

 

[thetrailboss]

My point wasn't clear the way I worded it. I certainly think that someone with the intention of thinning should get permission, it would be wrong to trespass and work on someone else's property. What I mean by NIMBYism is that there is, in my opinion, far too much opposition to even small projects these days. For instance, ski areas have to publish incredibly lengthy documents for permission to build nearly anything, and these documents have to go through numerous thorough checkpoints before work can even commence. As another example, if we expressed support for something even as insignificant as a new hiking trail in some of our wild regions of the northeast, we would have to wait ages before actual advances were made on the project. For this reason, we will never get a new ski area and have to wait decades for minor expansions. I wish society could be slightly less restrictive about projects such as these that happen in our wild places. The main reason people decide on cutting or thinning without permission or against the law is because they know this type of mindset is the reason they will not be allowed to do any kind of project of this sort.

I agree with that sentiment. Unfortunately we have a very reactionary regulatory regime.

 

[thetrailboss]

Agreed.

The examples in the article Trailboss linked to are at the extreme end of the "pruning" spectrum. Big Jay has been hacked to bits. There aren't just a few thinned lines out there. Practically the entire side of the mountain that has been thinned. That is not good or sustainable. The examples of widespread thinning off of the Catamount trail and adjacent to other ski areas are also on the extreme end.

My understanding is that the problem is not one big hacking project, but that the sum of the various smaller jobs is leading to the widespread destruction.

 

[BeefyBoy50]

Unfortunately I haven't been up to Jay Peak (will hope to change that in the coming season though) so I haven't seen the effects firsthand when people get too trigger happy with their chainsaws and other clear cutting tools. From what I'm hearing it sounds like it is worse than I imagined.

 

[thetrailboss]

Here's the point I made earlier...as stated in that VT Life Article:

The environmental damage is
usually not caused by skiing itself
— when snow melts in the
spring, the skiers’ tracks go with
it. Most damage comes, instead,
if skiers decide to improve the
glade they’re skiing through by
removing some of the troublesome,
ubiquitous undergrowth.
Or if they cut a new ski trail
without authorization.
There are indications that both
these things are happening. And at
its extreme, it left the ugly gash on
Big Jay, carved by two men intent
on creating a backcountry trail.

[....]

But state officials and environmental
advocates are concerned
that a subtler kind of long-term
damage is being done unintentionally
by skiers who simply snip
a branch or take out a shrub here
and there to improve a downhill
line. One branch may not matter,
but over time, a single branch
here and a bit of undergrowth
there adds up. And what it adds
up to is ecological damage.

Russ Ford of Berkshire, a Jay
Peak ski patroller who is also a
graduate student in ecology at
the University of Vermont, an
avid outdoorsman and a beef
farmer, says he and other experts
are now seeing long-term,
damaging changes in mountain
glades where skiers have snipped
and cut, a little at a time, for several years.

“They’re converting the glades to even-age stands,”
Ford said. Since all trees eventually die, Ford and
others pointed out that when those even-aged
stands start to die, the forest is breached and gaps
in the forest cover appear. “We see places where
the glades are being converted to openings,” he said.
Not only does this damage the forest, he added,
“the skiing sucks also.”

 

[Jully]

Here's the point I made earlier...as stated in that VT Life Article:

I agree with you there. Long term if every season individuals manipulate and destroy the new growth and saplings by 'improving' their backcountry glade or stash, the long term effect is that nature can't reproduce itself. The point was made earlier that most 2" diameter saplings don't ever grow into canopy, and that is very true, but some of them do and its a very necessary process to maintaining the forest that we all like to ski in. If you have a degree in forest ecology, or have watched forests grow and replenish for decades, then you can probably prune without much damage, and maybe some of the people defending their pruning here are capable of that, but I can guarantee that most of the people doing unauthorized trimming cannot make those calls and don't even care to try.

So, if every spring and summer we stop the forests on our mountainsides from reproducing in order to open up our stash a bit more, then eventually things will start to die and the forest will become too thin and less enjoyable. It won't be next year, it won't be in the next decade, but in two or three decades I worry that Cannon and Sugarbush might look a little different.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think, and this article thinks that its something to at least consider

 

[thetrailboss]

I agree with you there. Long term if every season individuals manipulate and destroy the new growth and saplings by 'improving' their backcountry glade or stash, the long term effect is that nature can't reproduce itself. The point was made earlier that most 2" diameter saplings don't ever grow into canopy, and that is very true, but some of them do and its a very necessary process to maintaining the forest that we all like to ski in. If you have a degree in forest ecology, or have watched forests grow and replenish for decades, then you can probably prune without much damage, and maybe some of the people defending their pruning here are capable of that, but I can guarantee that most of the people doing unauthorized trimming cannot make those calls and don't even care to try.

So, if every spring and summer we stop the forests on our mountainsides from reproducing in order to open up our stash a bit more, then eventually things will start to die and the forest will become too thin and less enjoyable. It won't be next year, it won't be in the next decade, but in two or three decades I worry that Cannon and Sugarbush might look a little different.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think, and this article thinks that its something to at least consider

You mentioned Sugarbush. About 20 years ago or so they had a significant landslide in Paradise. I believe that I heard that part of the reason for the landslide was the clearing of that area for the glade. I might be wrong.

 

[Jully]

I personally like what Sugarloaf is doing with Burnt Mountain trimming right now. They have a small group of experienced ski patrol and I think a few other local types going through and thoughtfully cutting the glades. In talking to some of the people behind the project, the guys are not only thinking about the skiing, but they are also thinking ecologically and are trying to cut glades that will last for years to come. They are going to handle the management in a way that works for both the skiers trying to use the terrain and the forest trying to grow around the backcountry skiing.

Not all tree skiing and backcountry pruning is ecologically destructive and its certainly nothing compared to a strip mall or a parking lot. However, you wouldn't see a mall on the side of a mountain, and there's something about the feel of a mountain's forest when skiing through it that I love. I want to try and protect it as much as I can while still being able to use it

 

[Jully]

I personally like what Sugarloaf is doing with Burnt Mountain trimming right now. They have a small group of experienced ski patrol and I think a few other local types going through and thoughtfully cutting the glades. In talking to some of the people behind the project, the guys are not only thinking about the skiing, but they are also thinking ecologically and are trying to cut glades that will last for years to come. They are going to handle the management in a way that works for both the skiers trying to use the terrain and the forest trying to grow around the backcountry skiing.

Not all tree skiing and backcountry pruning is ecologically destructive and its certainly nothing compared to a strip mall or a parking lot. However, you wouldn't see a mall on the side of a mountain, and there's something about the feel of a mountain's forest when skiing through it that I love. I want to try and protect it as much as I can while still being able to use it

 

[Jully]

You mentioned Sugarbush. About 20 years ago or so they had a significant landslide in Paradise. I believe that I heard that part of the reason for the landslide was the clearing of that area for the glade. I might be wrong.

I heard that might have been part of the cause for that as well.

 

[dlague]

I agree with you there. Long term if every season individuals manipulate and destroy the new growth and saplings by 'improving' their backcountry glade or stash, the long term effect is that nature can't reproduce itself. The point was made earlier that most 2" diameter saplings don't ever grow into canopy, and that is very true, but some of them do and its a very necessary process to maintaining the forest that we all like to ski in. If you have a degree in forest ecology, or have watched forests grow and replenish for decades, then you can probably prune without much damage, and maybe some of the people defending their pruning here are capable of that, but I can guarantee that most of the people doing unauthorized trimming cannot make those calls and don't even care to try.

So, if every spring and summer we stop the forests on our mountainsides from reproducing in order to open up our stash a bit more, then eventually things will start to die and the forest will become too thin and less enjoyable. It won't be next year, it won't be in the next decade, but in two or three decades I worry that Cannon and Sugarbush might look a little different.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think, and this article thinks that its something to at least consider

Those 2 inch round very young trees can take you out easier than those big ones. They bend at the top but not at the bottom.

 

[from_the_NEK]

My understanding is that the problem is not one big hacking project, but that the sum of the various smaller jobs is leading to the widespread destruction.

That is correct. People apparently weren't happy with a few narrow lines over there and everyone kept going in an trimming out their "own" stashes. Eventually they all blended together and there is very little undergrowth left.

 

[from_the_NEK]

I agree with you there. Long term if every season individuals manipulate and destroy the new growth and saplings by 'improving' their backcountry glade or stash, the long term effect is that nature can't reproduce itself. The point was made earlier that most 2" diameter saplings don't ever grow into canopy, and that is very true, but some of them do and its a very necessary process to maintaining the forest that we all like to ski in. If you have a degree in forest ecology, or have watched forests grow and replenish for decades, then you can probably prune without much damage, and maybe some of the people defending their pruning here are capable of that, but I can guarantee that most of the people doing unauthorized trimming cannot make those calls and don't even care to try.

So, if every spring and summer we stop the forests on our mountainsides from reproducing in order to open up our stash a bit more, then eventually things will start to die and the forest will become too thin and less enjoyable. It won't be next year, it won't be in the next decade, but in two or three decades I worry that Cannon and Sugarbush might look a little different.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think, and this article thinks that its something to at least consider

I'm not talking about trimming out lines free of undergrowth that are 30 yards wide. I'm talking single lines that are wide enough to link turns in without getting tangled up (15-30 feet wide). And like I said. I don't cut ALL of the undergrowth. Strong straight sapling are usually spared, even if I know they will force a quicker/tighter turn in the winter.
But you are correct. I'm not sure that many people out there trimming lines even consider what saplings they should be passing over.

 

[Brad J]

Big Dipper Glades were fine, It's Double Dipper that created the problem.

No actually cutting the super wide trail where Big dipper was started the problem!!

 

[steamboat1]

No actually cutting the super wide trail where Big dipper was started the problem!!

DUH! That super wide trail you speak of is Double Dipper.

 

[machski]

Oz at Sunday River as well.

It seems to me that often times the resorts do far more damage and a worse job when they cut a "glade" to put on the map, then when locals thin out some trees.

Never mind the actual comparison of environmental damage for a fully cut and developed trail vs locally maintained trees. What's worse; Profile or Bunny Direct?? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Current management knows this and will be making concerted efforts to correct and fix Oz starting this summer I'm told. The latest additions (Poppy Fields lines) are the new glading style they will be using over there. Tight, separated routes that are a blast but not wide lanes. Not sure how they plan to fix TW/LP (since they still make snow there), but it the do not make snow on Eurkea or keep it just to skiers left, they could start replanting skiers right and rope it off.

 

[thetrailboss]

Current management knows this and will be making concerted efforts to correct and fix Oz starting this summer I'm told. The latest additions (Poppy Fields lines) are the new glading style they will be using over there. Tight, separated routes that are a blast but not wide lanes. Not sure how they plan to fix TW/LP (since they still make snow there), but it the do not make snow on Eurkea or keep it just to skiers left, they could start replanting skiers right and rope it off.

I'm not sure I'd call Oz a true glade....

And this has been a very good discussion.


Sent from my iPhone using AlpineZone

 

[dlague]

Saddleback cleared out a section all summer long last year to add Red Devil glade. They cleared more than an individual would!

http://www.maineskifamily.com/2014/09/saddleback-red-devil-glade-work-day.html