GRAND TETON NATURE NOTES

BIG TREES IN THE TETONS

By Allyn F. Hanks
Chief Ranger.

In Cascade Canyon, Township 44 North, Range 116 West, Section 30, within the boundaries of the Grand Teton National Park at a point seventy-five paces west of the trail on a knoll about one hunded feet above the floor of the valley and bounding the northern limits of the first meadow in the South Fork, is located a very fine specimen of Whitebark Pine (pinus albicaulis Engelm) at an elevation of approximately eighty-six hundred feet above sea level.

This tree measures eighteen feet and two inches in circumference at a trunk height of four and a half feet. The height, obtained with an Abney level, is eighty-five feet and the first limb is thirty-four feet from base level. The crown spread line is approximately fifty feet east and west by sixty feet north and south.

This pine tree is erect and sound of trunk and limb. The crown is well formed and the root system appears healthy and secure. The tree has excellent environment, well sheltered, southwest exposure with gentle slope, open herbacious ground cover, good drainage and no compaction of porous rocky soil. The specimen appears to be in good health and is not directly affected by man-made influences. It is growing in association with alpine fir and Engelmann spruce.

In the mouth of Death Canyon a rather large group of trees believed to be Northern Black Cottonwood (populus trichocarpa hastata Henry) have grown to a rather unusual size for this species. They may not be of record proportions, but they seem worthy of mention for this locality.

One of the larger cottonwoods was found to be one hundred twenty-seven feet in height, eleven feet three inches in circumference at a trunk height of four and a half feet, the first limb fifty feet above the ground, the crown measures approximately fifty-five feet and has a forty-five foot spread.

Several of the trees in this group appear to be of approximately the same height as the one measured and nearly of the same diameter.