Wyoming Colors - Post-fire Recovery and Leaf Change at Lake Owen

Spent Labor Day weekend camping with my fiancé and some friends at Lake Owen in the Medicine Bow mountains of Southern Wyoming.

Back in 2020, Southern Wyoming and Northern Colorado were bombarded with wildfires (the Cameron Peak fire in Colorado; the Mullen Fire in Wyoming). At the time, I was driving along Snowy Range Road towards Encampment and the Sierra Madres while the Mullen Fire was raging. I took this photo back in 2020 of the fire, which was burning in the same area around Lake Owen.

Four years later, you can see the damage clearly. What were once green stands of lodgepole pine, spruce, and fir trees are now charred in many places. While the conifer forests in the Intermountain West have evolved with fire, years of fire suppression coupled with a changing climate have created conditions where fires burn hotter than they otherwise would, thereby scorching the soils to a degree that makes recovery difficult and long. The areas also become prone to mudslides as this burnt soil is also very hydrophobic.

And yet, biodiversity is still present. Though we did not see them directly, evidence of moose (tracks), beaver (a beaver lodge), rodents (lots of piles of seeds and other evidence of feeding) was present all around. We also saw a tiny boreal chorus frog, and fuzzy orange and black caterpillars (spotted tussock moth larva evidently, Lophocampa maculata).

The beaver lodge is exciting because these massive rodents are being increasingly seen as a helpful solution to mitigating wildfires in the west. Research has shown that beavers can potentially mitigate fire damage by increasing and restoring wetland and riparian zones, and thereby reducing intensity of fires [1-2]. See my references below to find a link to PBS Terra's video on using beavers and their dam building skills to help combat drought and wildfires.

Bird life was also present around the lake, including a sighting of a bald eagle gliding overhead (unfortunately I did not get a chance to capture this as an observation).

For me the highlight of this region of Wyoming is the changing of the aspens. Though not close to their full peak of fall foliage color, there were plenty of yellow, orange, and red leaves to go around. Some of the aspens that we saw had an unusual purple color on their leaves, and this did not look like healthy leaf change. We saw it on one grove in particular, and since aspens are clones (I've written about this in a previous journal post), we wondered if maybe the entire clone had been infected, and if something in the underground root system was causing this.

Fall is a great time for camping. Here's the thing: camping, especially in an area pretty far away from any major civilization (Wyoming is a good place for this) is a good way to appreciate the cyclical nature of everything. Of course we are aware of the changing seasons. But camping also helps you appreciate the cycles of temperature throughout the day. In September in these parts, it is still pretty warm (sometimes even hot) during the day, but you absolutely need a jacket or at least long sleeves at night because the temperatures chill significantly. And when you are far enough away from major cities to see a sky relatively free of light pollution, you can actually appreciate the cycles of light and dark.

And, just like everything else, fire is a cycle too. Many of the evergreen trees in the western United States depend on the cycle of fire to release their cones - without fire there could be no new trees. Human intervention and climate change has disrupted these cycles which is why the fires now are so much more devastating. Hopefully we can continue to use science and research to understand ways to best live with fire, because in this part of the country it is not going away.

References

1. Weirich III, Joseph John. "Beaver moderated fire resistance in the north cascades and potential for climate change adaptation." (2021).
2. PBS Terra. (2021, November 18). Want to Solve Wildfires and Drought? Leave it to BEAVERS! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lT5W32xRN4

Posted on September 14, 2024 06:57 PM by mhughes26