Powerful winds in early 2022 toppled thousands of spruce and fir across 800 acres in the southern Colorado Sangre de Cristo Range south of Cuchara.
For two years the entire Trinchera Road — Forest Service Road 436 — above Blue Lakes west of Cuchara has been closed to the public, preventing access to popular lakes, campgrounds and the Blue Lake Trailhead, as well as the eastern flank of Trinchera Peak.
The San Isabel National Forest and Colorado State Forest Service last year partnered on a project that removed downed timber from a 94-acre section in the blowdown area around roads. The focus of the project was public safety and the removal of trees around campgrounds and along the Forest Service Road 436 to provide safer egress for visitors in case of wildfire.
Specialized logging equipment that cuts trees on steep slopes cleared a fuel break that provided 196 truckloads of timber to the Blanca Forest Products sawmill in Blanca. The effort also produced 100 cords of firewood the Forest Service is selling.
On Aug. 1, the San Carlos Ranger District lifted the road closure with an order that opens Trinchera Road to hikers, motorcycles and ATVs but no vehicles wider than 50 inches. The Forest Service is planning work in 2025 to clear the road for full-sized vehicles.
Blowdowns are rare but they happen in Colorado. In October 1997, hurricane-force winds downed some 6 million mature Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir across a 25-mile swath covering 20,000 acres in the Routt National Forest near Steamboat Springs. The Routt Divide Blowdown ranks as the largest ever recorded in the Rocky Mountains.
Wind blowdown events tend to kill the tallest trees. Research by Colorado forest ecologists shows that blowdowns can shift forest dynamics for decades, with new species of trees — like aspens — growing in areas that were once crowded with conifers.
But areas with wind-killed trees can be “yet another avenue for forest pests to take hold,” reads a report from the Colorado State Forest Service.
“Spruce beetle is currently active in the vicinity of these wind-driven, uprooted trees, setting the stage for heightened potential of spruce and other bark beetles to increase populations in the coming years,” a 2022 forest health report from the Colorado State Forest Service at Colorado State University reads.
