The main seasonal creek briefly runs like a small river after monster rain storms. We had one each in 2024 and 2025, plus a few smaller ones that didn't help matters. From maybe 2018 through 2023 we could drive full-size 4WD vehicles up/down the entire 3/4-ish mile of the creek bed, when the ground was relatively dry. No more since 2024. There are still a couple of sections where we are not comfy driving our ATV an UTV -- too large of dropoffs and constant mud holes. Last month I felled a number of trees within the creek's "valley", and I'm experimenting with clogging up the new erosion channel. Many of these logs are quite a bit longer than 6 feet. I positioned most of them with a cant hook, but a few required a come along. I haven't anchored them yet with rebar.




There are a few large snags in this channel section which still need to be felled. The logs should clog up a decent portion of this mud bog.

Here's what a recently-infected tree often looks like. You can see the brown-needle branches on the lower right. I give strong odds that this one will be dead by next summer. I plan to fell it directly towards the camera, which should land the top in the mud pool just forward of the red truck in the prior photo. I recall this tree is around 24" to 26" in diameter at my expected felling cut, and it's likely 70-plus feet tall.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Beetles suck. Big time.

Is there any way to go after the beetles before they kill the tree?

A few ways have been tried, however their efficacy is questionable.

When I was very young and grampa lived on a larger portion of this ranch, we experienced beetle migration between trees for only a few months in the spring. The trees try to push out the boring bugs with a heavy flow of pitch, and the pitch pockets are easily visible. The pitch pocket "hits" were almost always close to the ground -- no more than 6 feet up. We felled the infected trees by Memorial Day, covered the bucked logs with heavy plastic, after spraying them with diesel and sometimes with a mix of lindane (nasty stuff). We are able to stop infestations within a season or two.

The beetles now act differently. They seem to fly between trees year round. They might bore into trunks as much as 30 feet up. Instead of infecting trees no more than 15-20 feet from the original tree, we're now seeing them jump as much as 80-100 feet between trees.

One control method is spraying live tree trunks with an insecticide. One has to spray every trunk, all the way around, maybe 30 feet up. A respray is recommended after a heavy rain. Very expensive, very labor intensive.

Another control method is to wrap the trunks in heavy plastic. Every tree, all the way around, maybe 30 feet up. I ain't doing that.

Last year we experimented with attaching beetle pheromone packets on critical trees around buildings. Initial results are promising, however the packets are a bit pricey and probably are best placed twice a year.

Last month my B-I-L experimented with injecting small amounts of pesticide in the pitchy hit pockets on 2 quite large trees along their entry road. These trees first showed hits in late October. The pesticide doesn't seem to be working. I looked at the trees over Thanksgiving. They each have 30+ hits now, some as much as 20 feet up their trunks. The trees are actually on the neighbor's land, but should they fall naturally, they'll likely cross onto my B-I-L's property. I expect it will be my job to fell them late next year, as the neighbor doesn't have the skills/equipment to safely take down 26-28 inch trees that are at likely 75 feet tall. My sister flagged another 30-35 smaller trees with new hits, just downhill from the 2 big ones. These trees are roughly 8-12 inches in diameter, which is on the smaller end of trees that beetles normally attack. She suspects a few dozen more nearby will show beetle hits by spring.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
So why do you have to cut down infected trees?

If the beetles act like the southern pine beetle, it is to slow the spread to other trees. Apparently, it is far harder for beetles to infect other trees when they can’t simply blow downwind to the next one.

That is a ton of work! Wht part of the state are you in?

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
So why do you have to cut down infected trees?

Simple answer is fire danger.

Where I am I can burn slash, no permit required part of the year. Manage your own land. How it should be. These idiots that think they know best are the ones that have no clue what works and what doesn't. But hey they got a shirt.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
So why do you have to cut down infected trees?

The majority of trees invaded by beetles will die. Some within a few months of the initial hits, others may last a few years before giving up the battle.

Wood begins deteriorating shortly after the tree dies. Branches lose strength and fall from the tree. Twice I've been thinning saplings, heard a crash behind me, and saw the wreckage from a large branch smacking into the ground. The stem loses strength, becoming susceptible to snapped in two by wind storms -- especially after snow loads from wet spring storms. The root system loses strength -- the tree can fall over from wind loads, or may just topple over if the tree is leaning noticeably.

The ranch's woodlands are around 120-130 acres, but we regularly visit all areas. We must control noxious weeds from late spring through mid summer, which is currently done from an ATV and a side-by-side. We regularly drive the woodlands with a pickup truck. We lease the land for cattle grazing, and the cattle regularly roam through the woods for grass. I have not yet seen a tree fall, but I've seen where trees fell overnight -- right over the previous day's vehicle tracks.

Here's a portion of a roughly 5-6 acre area that regularly receives micro-burst wind storms. Our ancestors never cleaned up this portion of the land. It took me a couple of years to remove all the crap wood, and now we can drive trucks through here -- although with a little bobbing and weaving.




Here's an example of a snag which roots failed. It wasn't dead for all that long when the roots failed, evidenced by still having some brown needles. When a ponderosa has been dead for some time, the branches have no needles.

Thanks for the detailed answer

What part of the state is this ?

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Originally posted by coloradohunter44:
What part of the state is this ?

The ranch is southeast of Denver.

I grabbed another 6 gallons of VP at $20 each. Didn't expect the Black Friday prices to continue into December. I should now have enough fuel for 2026.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
So why do you have to cut down infected trees?

Because they need to be felled. Trees aren't sacred -- they're just big plants.

The region was recently hit with a series of "high wind events". Many places experienced wind gusts over 100 mph. I was working at the ranch on one of those days. I arrived early in the morning, loaded tools into the pickup we keep onsite, went off to the center of our woodlands to pick up wood already on the ground from previous days. Around noon I returned to our fenced-in area that we keep vehicles & tools. I quickly noticed that a large beetle-kill nearby had blown over in the last few hours. This tree was at the top of my felling to-do list, as it threatened an electrical distribution system we installed earlier this year. I calculated that it the tree fell in the wrong direction, it would crunch the system. I planned to take it down before the end of the month -- but I needed a relatively calm day.

The tree was about 20" diameter and 65' tall. IIRC, it died in early 2025. It snapped at a week point in the stem, around 3-5 feet from the ground. Had it wind blown it about 20 degrees to the west, the top would have landed on the electrical system. The top branches were definitely heavy enough to cause significant damage.






For the last few months I've concentrated on trimming low branches on all sizes of trees, and on thinning saplings from overgrown areas. These actions allow better vehicle for weed control and reduce wildland fire danger. I now need to reconsider my priorities for trimming, thinning, and felling.

Christmas brought warm temps and no snow. So it was chainsaw work days at my B-I-L's house in the mountains...and then feasting, of course. The first day's work was bucking logs on the ground from the previous year's beetle tree felling. There were a number of 3- to 7-foot long logs in a fairly compact area. Now they're stacked and ready to be split for firewood. I used the Stihl 400 with a 20" bar. The bar, chain, and drive gear are all showing some wear -- a few more days like this and it might be time to replace all three. I consumed a gallon of fuel on this day. I burned almost 2 gallons of fuel with this saw over Thanksgiving, also bucking their older beetle trees. The 400 powerhead is still running like a champ.

Between my MS-261, MS-362, FS-131 trimmer and FS-561 clearing saw, I use around 8-10 gallons of fuel a year. I can't imagine needing to buy pre-mix. Everything I have runs great mixing 89 octane or higher gas with a 2.6 oz. bottle of Stihl 2 cycle engine oil per gallon.

I read some research on mountain pine beetles from our state's aggie university and US forest service specialists. I believe it's time we return to cutting and covering heavily-infected trees prior to their ultimate demise. The cattle are off the land until May, I think the worst of the hazard trees are on the ground now, and I can put the forest thinning & trimming on hold for a while. The ranch has a few trees with relatively fresh beetle hit marks. I suspect the adult beetles have already flown, but the larvae should still be in trees. Felling the trees will remove their food source. Covering them in plastic sheeting will prevent them from flying off, and will eventually cook them with heat from sunlight.

Here's my 166th & final tree felled in 2025. 21 inches diameter at the felling cut and 52 feet tall. It was leaning slightly towards a couple of larger healthy trees, and the branch load made it worse. Think of the tree as naturally wanting to fall at the 12 o'clock direction, but I wanted to drop it at 1:30 in an open area. And to save the 4" diameter sapling right next to it. My felling cut was virtually perfect -- had I put a 7' tall stake at 40 feet along my aiming point, the trunk would have hit the stake square on.





A few buddies have asked why I regularly use the conventional face cut instead of the Humboldt face cut to fell trees -- like the professional loggers almost always use. I know both methods, however my needs are different.
- A low Humboldt cut saves out more of the thicker wood in the stem's butt portion. I'm not selling wood for lumber or poles, so I don't need this.
- The Humboldt cut drops the butt on the ground sooner than the conventional, placing the butt closer to the stump, and removing some of the energy of the fall earlier.
- The conventional cut tends to launch the stem a few feet forward from the stump, and the stem tends to belly flop on the ground. This tends to impart the full energy of the fall on the stem at once, which can fracture the stem at a point that would devalue the lumber or pole.
- A higher stump allows me to be standing when the felling hinge breaks. If something goes wrong, I can escape the stump faster from a standing position.

This tree is a perfect example of using the conventional cut and a high-ish stump.
- The tree initially launched forward a few feet, then broke a few branches on the belly flop.
- Like many of our Ponderosa Pines that matured with few nearby trees, its lower & middle branches are thick, strong, and heavy. These branches didn't break, but rather pushed the whole tree back towards the stump after the impact.
- With a low Humboldt cut, the butt of the stem likely would have ended up being behind the stump. And could easily have struck a sawyer who just stood next to the stump, as the whole tree jumped backwards after landing.
- With all this in mind, I retreated in the 5 o'clock direction. I was behind the slightly larger tree, some 15 feet behind the stump.

Here it is with many of the branches trimmed, and ready to be pulled over with the truck. The tree was surprisingly stable at this point. It took some pretty good pulling with the truck to snap the supporting branches. I could have toppled the tree easier directly to the side, but that might have damaged the small sapling and a mid-sized tree near the butt.




All cut up and ready to be covered with plastic sheeting. At this point it was mid-morning on the second day -- New Year's Day.




I then began working on a larger tree -- the work on it is not yet done.

Man that is a lot of work to get to that point. How many hours for an average sized tree?

Have you looked at purchasing a mill yourself and selling slabs? A coworker bought a mill several years back so he could process trees from his land, both softwood conifers and oak, into boards and slabs primarily for his own use... but he was also able to sell slabs to recoup some costs. As I recall the mill was in the 4-grand ballpark and I think he said it could hand 26 or 28 inch diameter.

Perhaps it would be too much additional time and work, or not enough local market. I guess you could always build your own outbuildings some day with it all.

Our neighbors bought a second-hand mill and used it to make most of the wood for their barn. They used very few beetle kill trees -- the wood was often too dry and the infected trees often didn't produce very straight wood. So they ended up harvesting a number of good trees. Trees I would have left for the general health of the forest. It was a lot of work and they said they probably wouldn't consider doing it again. But they saved money, when they had more time than cash. They sold the mill.

There's a huge supply of pine wood in this region, and no real commercial mills to take the raw timber. And honestly, we have a lot of trees to deal with as a family, but not that much for a commercial entity.

An average infected or storm-damaged tree is maybe 15-16 inches in diameter and 50-55 feet tall. If a tree matures in a grove of other trees, it will have fewer and smaller branches. I can process 2 of such trees in a good day. Maybe more on a long day in the summer. Trees that mature in the open -- where they don't compete with nearby others for sunlight and water -- have lots of branches, which substantially slows the processing.

****
Tree #1 for 2026. 21 inches at the felling cut, 67 feet tall. Leaning heavily, with a substantial limb load in the direction of the lean. The best place to dump this tree for processing was straight back in the first pic, directly behind the red truck, but without a substantial winch system that just wasn't going to happen. That open land was at 9 o'clock to the 12 o'clock direction of the lean.




The tree's natural lean was going directly at the left fork of the twin tree -- just beyond the cut stump. Felling the tree there would have been....bad. The only realistic location was the small opening to the right of the twins, or about 1 o'clock from the lean. I didn't want to strip branches from the trees on either side of the small opening. Especially the smaller tree on the right -- it might not recover from substantial branch loss on its left side. I aimed for the right side of the opening, figuring the lean and branch weight would pull the falling tree a bit to the left. I cut the hinge so it was a little smaller on the left side, so in theory the left side of the tree would break first, slightly steering it to the right.

It dropped about as well is I could hope for. It broke 2 branches on the right side of the right twin. No branches were broken on the mid-sized tree on the right -- even after the stem rolled to the right after impacting the ground. I got most of the tree limbed on New Year's Day, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I burned another gallon of fuel in the Stihl 400 between these two days.

I decided it was time to retire the 20" chain I've used for a while. It just wouldn't remain sharp. I installed a new Stihl full chisel, full comp, "yellow" chain. Yeehaw, does it cut well.

Absolutely no wind this day, so it was a good day to go after larger trees. Actually, it would have been a really good day for long-distance rifle practice, but I digress. This tree was leaning to the east, but letting it fall with gravity would have crushed a few healthy saplings. I wanted to swing it 90 degrees clockwise, to land in the open area to the south...right where I took the first picture.

26" at the felling cut, 75 feet tall. It felt good to get this one down exactly on my aim line. Dealing with the branches sucked. I need a second day to finish cleaning up the tree.

Yeah pines can have a lot of branches, what do you do with them?

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
Yeah pines can have a lot of branches, what do you do with them?

Branches go into the small to mid-sized erosion ravines -- to clog them up and reduce future erosion. This also opens up the ground in forested areas, increasing the growth of grasses.

Nothing like a new chain! And yeah, that tree was a big one.

It's gonna be a couple of months before I get to play with my saw again. Still burning through last year's wood...which is just fine considering it's in single digits out there right now.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

Branches go into the small to mid-sized erosion ravines -- to clog them up and reduce future erosion. This also opens up the ground in forested areas, increasing the growth of grasses.

That's a good way to deal with them there. Here I just stack them in piles, they would rot regardless but it just looks better to me rather than leaving them lay where they were cut. The piles make good habitat as well. Normally I make the piles in the woods but a couple years ago I made a large pile in a field near the edge of the woods. I know small animals utilize it because I see the occasional black snake there and in winter fox tracks in the snow.

A lot of people around here make piles then burn them which I don't understand.

Fritz I assume you have a machine with a grapple?