To conclude my field report on the Mount Hood National Forest, I thought this was a great opportunity to get out of the house and identify native trees. I learned it can be difficult to identify mature, tall trees, as sometimes all you have to go on for identification is the bark and fallen branches (if you’re lucky!).
Presence of Wildfire
One thing a came across during my time in the field was a patch of burned trees from a wildfire that occurred a few years ago. It seemed like it was likely caused by a campfire that sparked dry debris, since the burn pattern was circular and didn’t appear to have spread outside the circle. The fire regime on the west side of Mt. Hood is large fires every 25-75 years, as opposed to the east side, which would have smaller, more frequent fires every couple of years. With the effects of climate change creating dryer, longer fire seasons, it will be interesting to see how this side of the forest will change and how forest management will need to adapt.
Conclusion
Overall, I thought this was a nice project, considering our current situation, since it encouraged me to go outside and look at nature from a different lens. I think it would be interesting to conduct the same observations on the east side of Mt. Hood and compare them to the westside. I would encourage everyone to get outside and enjoy this beautiful, diverse forest only an hour from Portland!
Seeing Trees PDX 