Check yourself before you wreck yourself

[Salty]

For those of you planning to attend the Oct Linville Gorge hang and do an overnight down in the gorge, be sure you look up before selecting your trees. Many of the best looking trees along the river are hemlocks. Their trunks look fine, but if you look up, you'll see that they are now all dead and loaded with widow-makers. I was shocked. Every time I thought I found the perfect hanging spot, it turned out that one or both of the trees were dead hemlocks. Dang wooly adelgid! It's a shame. First the chesnuts and now the hemlocks, and I understand there is a looming threat to the oaks.

Salty

[wisenber]

It's really quite sad. It's an ugly wound that has impacted almost every forest out here. Drive thru and see about 70-80% of the mountainside covered in dead pine trees; just spots of green left on a lot of the mountains.

We've had them here for a while. The hemlocks are also going. The chestnuts are long gone. Last month, an ashe beetle was found in Knoxville. At some point, we'll run out of trees which does not bode well for hammock hangers.

[G.L.P.]

thank god i have a SMD Gatewood Cape LOL

[Shug]

We are never really safe out there in the rotten piney woods.
Is that what draws us ..... somewhat? All the gifts we get from nature do come with a risk.
Folks die playing golf. I always keep that thought in my head in the woods.
Shug

[Just Jeff]

I'd rather die in the woods than anywhere else. Just hope it's not from my own stupidity, though.

"Life's tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne

[mbiraman]

It's really quite sad. It's an ugly wound that has impacted almost every forest out here. Drive thru and see about 70-80% of the mountainside covered in dead pine trees; just spots of green left on a lot of the mountains.

Were having the same problem in BC. Not too bad where i live as we have a mixed forest but go north into the Caribou, Chilcotin region and its everywhere. They figure that within the next couple decades 2/3rds of all the pine in BC will be gone. Thats allot of trees. Where i live we lost the white pine ten yrs ago and are loosing the birch now. The birch are so beautiful around my property and most are dying. I like using birch bark for fire starting and so when i'm on my hikes whenever i come across a birch shedding skin i collect it cause at some point in the near future they'll be gone. Sad

[tiredhiker]

in the winter its even harder to tell if tree is dead. you need to knock on it,

but what if someone answers the knock????

[Cannibal]

but what if someone answers the knock????

Then it's time to find a new campsite!

[clb]

Pine beetles bad in northeast Texas as well. One of the tell tale signs of Pine beetle infestation, even before the tree looks dead is what I can only describe as a white-ish grey,yellow, or red-brown chewing gum/sawdust found on the lower trunk, which are the pitch tubes of the beetles. The tree is actually trying to drown the beetle when it enters the tree. It's pretty easy to spot...see it, find another tree, preferably a different species. The sad thing is, as some have already alluded to, is that there are a variety from western, mountain, southern and Douglas fir types. That said, however, a tree that near falling would certainly look dead.
moral of story...always look UP

[Dutch]

It happens Bro...the only thing we can to is learn from it...
i'm just going to hug all the trees i plan to hang from..Dutch better not make fun of me

You just keep hugging those trees. One of my worst nightmares is Greenlespaul getting squashed with a tree. I just hope we're alone so I don't have to split the gear.

Do pine beetles only go after pine trees or are other tree suspect?