|
Estes Park’s State Champion Trees
Estes Park’s first state champion tree, a
balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera), was found by
Tree Board member Scott Roederer in 2002. It was
commemorated on Arbor Day 2003, and a plaque now notes its
significance.
The tree is located in the downtown area.
Take E. Riverside west from the turn to the post office to a
small, city-owned parking lot just past the last house on
the right.
The trunk of this gnarly old tree measures
132 inches in circumference, giving it a diameter of 3.5
feet. Its height is 58 feet, and it has an average crown
spread of 37 feet. That adds up to 199.25 points in the
system used to determine the “official” size of a tree.
A state forester estimated the age of the
tree to be 150 years. A seedling in the 1850s, it has
witnessed a lot of changes in its neighborhood.
Balsam poplar is the most common deciduous
tree in Canada. It reaches its southern limit in Colorado.
They are more common in RMNP than in the Estes Valley. When
you park at the Fern Lake Trailhead, you are in a fine grove
of balsam poplars. They are related to cottonwoods and
aspen. The second-place balsam poplar is located along the
Fern Lake Trail.
If you visit the champion balsam poplar, it
won’t mind if you gently pinch one of its leaf buds to enjoy
the spicy smell of its resin. Notice the rest of its family
grove, which extends along the river and across the street.
Before the road was put in, this was undoubtedly quite an
impressive stand of balsam poplars.
The other state champs are much smaller in
relation to the poplar, but they are giants in their own
right. One is a whiplash willow (Salix lucida
caudata) located across Fish Creek Road from the Van
Horn Engineering office.
These willows are common along streams, which
suggests that Fish Creek once ran its course on the east
side of the road where this willow lives.
All have multiple trunks, the largest of
which are usually no bigger than your wrist. The largest
trunk on this specimen is 32 inches in circumference or
almost one foot in diameter. Small for a tree, huge for a
whiplash willow!
Its height of 17 feet and crown spread of 32
feet gives it 60 points in the state champion registry. It
was a new species for the list when it was found, again by
Scott Roederer, in 2003.
Its age is unknown, but we can surmise that
it has survived the loss of the stream it probably grew up
next to and the gnawings of many elk over the years.
A similar willow, this one a Bebb willow
(Salix bebbiana), was also determined to be a state
champion in 2003. It lives on RMNP property across Mary’s
Lake Road from the Other Side restaurant. Like the whiplash,
it is large only in comparison to typical Bebb willows.
With a circumference of 27 inches, a height
of 17 feet, and a spread of 24 feet, it scored 50 points. It
was also a new species for the state champion registry.
An even more remarkable “tree” is Estes
Park’s final entry in the state registry. Near the mausoleum
at MacGregor Ranch is a shrub so large it qualifies as a
tree. It’s a Siberian pea shrub, Caragana
arborescens, and it almost didn’t make it onto the state
list because of its name!
Under the rules of the National Champion Tree
Register, a woody plant must have a trunk circumference of
9.5 inches and a height of 13 feet to be a tree, and this
shrub barely qualifies. With a height of 13 feet, a
circumference of 13 inches, and a spread of 14 feet, it
scored 29.7 points.
Local residents know this species as a
deer-proof shrub for hedges and ornamental planting. To have
reached the size it has, someone in its past almost
certainly pruned it to be a tree. And, just as certainly,
that pruning was abandoned during its life, letting it
return to its nature of being a shrub. All trees have a
history, but this one’s history made it notable in an
unanticipated way.
Not all our big trees are champions. Some of
the more noteworthy are described in the next section on
historical trees.
To learn
more about how to measure a tree and how the points are
determined, visit the Colorado Tree Coalition’s website and
follow the champion tree link to that information and a full
list of
Colorado’s state
champion trees.
The
register of
national champion trees is on the American Forests website, where
you’ll also find more detailed information on measuring
trees.
Historical
Trees in the Estes Park Area
The trees described here have a story to
tell. They have a relationship with the people and community
around them spanning generations. We’d like to expand this
section. You can use the contact link found on the Tree
Board’s pages to send us stories of your trees with a
history.
We’re also interested in the history of the
Colorado blue spruces at MacGregor Ranch, the trees on the
south shore of Lake Estes and in the Reclamation Subdivision
that were planted during construction of the Colorado-Big
Thompson Project, and the trees of Bond Park. Please contact
us if you have information on these or other historical
trees.
We’ll start with two trees that have been
loved by generations of young people visiting the area, one
at Cheley Camp and one at Meadow Mountain, the girl scout
camp near Allenspark. Both are big. Both are Douglas-firs.
And both have names, a sure sign they are admired and loved.
Chief’s Tree on Cheley Camp property is a
huge, old tree, one of the largest trees, if not the
largest, in our area. It was named in honor of Frank Cheley
who founded the youth camp. Its circumference is 178 inches,
almost 15 feet. Its height is also impressive, at 107 feet,
and its crown spread averages 45 feet. Total points: 296.25.
Hercules is within the boundaries of Rocky
Mountain National Park, alongside a trail leading from the
Meadow Mountain Girl Scout Camp. It’s even bigger in
circumference at 193 inches, but its trunk split on the way
up, so it’s only 78 feet tall. Still, it’s magnificent.
Total points: 282.
Hercules was reportedly cored to determine
its age some years ago. It was 318 years old at the time.
You can visit Hercules by taking the Finch
Lake Trail in Wild Basin. Go over the ridge and descend the
south side to a trail junction, where you can go straight
ahead to the Allenspark Trailhead, right to Finch Lake, or
left to Hercules. You can’t miss him.
Both these trees are destinations for young
people enjoying a summer stay at the two camps. They
certainly have a history with many, many children.
Check back as we add more stories of the
historical trees in our area.
Old Trees in the Estes Park Area
The tree you see here was certainly not
impressive in size or beauty, but it’s a tree worthy of
every respect. It lived over 820 years!
This Douglas-fir was cored to determine its
age many years ago. It died in 2004, perhaps a result of
drought, disease, or simply old age.
You can pay your respects to this tree along
the upper loop trail on the north side of Lily Lake. Look
for it on the right side of the trail if you’re traveling
east to west.
Certainly not typical of Douglas-firs (as
you’ve learned in the section on historical trees), this old
fellow grew in poor, sandy soil among the rocks. Its
carrot-shaped trunk is characteristic of these conditions.
For more
information about the age of trees, visit
OLDLIST,
sponsored by Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research. There you’ll
find a list of known old-timers, including bristlecone pines
over 4,800 years old and giant sequois over 3,000 years old,
all aged by scientific methods.
But what about the big trees in our neck of
the woods? How old are they? Without using those scientific
methods, such as ring coring, we can only guess based on
what we do know.
You can determine the age of trees that are
cut down. With patience (and maybe a magnifying glass), you
can count the rings on many of these trees. We’ve counted
the rings on a few ponderosa pines, and what we found may
surprise you. It will also give you an idea how old that big
ponderosa in your own neighborhood is.
One ponderosa pine in a residential area east
of Fish Creek Road was felled in 2005 as a hazard. It was
3.15 feet at the base and had 418 rings!
This ponderosa was a seedling in 1587. It’s
difficult to think what its view was like then! How many
wildfires did it survive? And how many droughts? (Drought
years can be seen in the rings.)
A hundred yards south of this tree, another
old ponderosa succumbed to a beetle attack and was cut in
2006. It was slightly larger, about 3.5 feet, and was 334
years old.
Here are a few more felled trees and their
ring counts:
Ponderosa, 2.5 feet, 272 years, on Big Horn
Drive;
Ponderosa, 1.8 feet, 132 years, Cow Creek area, RMNP;
Aspen, .63 feet, 43 years, Endovalley, RMNP;
Douglas-fir, 1.5 feet, 136 years, Cow Creek area, RMNP.
Too many factors contribute to a tree’s
growth to make valid generalizations about age based on
size, but these numbers may give you a greater appreciation
of the trees in your yard or those next to your favorite
picnic table in Rocky Mountain National Park.
|
