Re: Trees at Rodgers - What is happening?

Hopefully you can see the trees in this picture do not look healthy.
All around Rodgers it looks like the trees are dying.
Definitely not due to a fire. Is it some beetle infestation or ????
Anyone know for sure?


If you want a closer view:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dale.dekeyser/RockIsle#5354666918781564226
click on the magnify icon

This was taken 6/30/2009

We were just up at Roger's lake last week and noticed the same thing. The dead tress are not limited to that area however. We noticed extensive areas of dead trees throughout much of the northern area, far less the further south you went. It looked more like the work of a bore than a beetle to me, but not sure.

Rodgers (with a d).

Everywhere north of Rodgers the trees were very healthy the route we took.
(Rock Canyon, Slide Canyon, Kerrick Canyon)

I was quite shocked going into Rodgers ... it just seemed like all of the sudden.. bam...
Hopefully the trees affected pull thru...

Just went back through our pics of the trip and Rodgers was by far the worst. We began to notice it a little in Wilson Creek, a little around Smedburg, heavy at Rodgers and Neal Lakes, mild again down Rodgers Meadow with a minimum in Pate Valley. We did run into a group in Virginia Canyon that said the trees around Summit Lake were bad also. But we didn't see those, and the area we saw lower down in Virginia Canyon looked fine.

Virginia Canyon was bad as Ray said.

What the heck is going on? I keep forgetting to ask the rangers out and about.

Quote
bill-e-g
Virginia Canyon was bad as Ray said.

What the heck is going on? I keep forgetting to ask the rangers out and about.

I forgot to mention that we saw the same thing on the Sunrise trial; it looked like a fire without the burn marks. (mikey took some pics that he can dig out) There were large areas with only the largest specimens surviving.

I can only hope that you're not experiencing the same Pine Beetle infestation that the northern rockies are. If so, you just may see some real bad fires down the road.

Let's hope!

Overall, I don't know what the actual rainfall/snow levels have been in Yosemite in general, but, this type of damage is usally a classic indicator of drought. The sap level drops in the pine trees, and the bark beetles are able to penetrate deeper and kill the trees. Moisture levels need to be consistent in order to stave off the beetle situation (meaning that a late season dump of snow is great for the reservoirs, but it does not protect the trees from the beetles)

For the first time in perhaps 10 years of passage through the Ag Inspection station in Truckee, I was asked this spring about transporting firewood upon entry into California. Only a matter of time before California enjoys the Pine Bark Beetle that has ravaged the Rockies.

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Quote
Frank Furter
Only a matter of time before California enjoys the Pine Bark Beetle that has ravaged the Rockies.

We've had that problem for years now.

http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/museum/barkbeetle/distribution.htm

I noticed the same problems in the Julian area of San Diego Co. a few years ago but nothing like that up here in the Reno area. Yet.

http://www.organicrosecare.org/articles/worm_bark_beetle.php

Probably a combination of a whole bunch of things. Maybe Rodgers Lake is sitting on an awakening volcano vent?

(that was a joke)