I know that the park isn't known for big trees, but are there any groves of big, old growth trees in Yellowstone?

Thinking out loud . . . .

The 1988 fires affected more than half the park, so that reduces a lot of possibilities.

Most of the park is lodgepole pine, the main fire succession tree. That's not old-growth.

After 200 years or so without a fire in a lodgepole forest you start to get some Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, and some Douglas-fir. That's probably as old as you can get.

If you take the loop road along the north shore of Yellowstone Lake, the eastern half of that stretch has some spruce-fir forest as well as a lot of lodgepole. There was a fire through part of that stretch within the past year.

We also hit some old-growth forest in the NW part of the park two weeks ago. Pretend you're taking the trail up Electric Peak, and it's in the last half mile before the Electric Peak/Upper Gardiner junction -- about 5 miles from the Bunsen Peak trailhead. (The two campgrounds at 6 miles in are both nice spots if you want an easy backpack, or a base camp for Electric.)

With more precipitation than anywhere else I've seen big trees in the Bechler.

Trees survived in decent numbers all over Yellowstone, even within some burn areas.

it's funny, after working as a forester in california for years and recently shifting to montana, all of the trees in the rockies seem miniature - on the coast in northern california and oregon, a 200-foot-tall tree isn't even noteworthy - even in the sierra nevada, you regularly see trees that are 4 feet in diameter - in central montana, a 100-foot-tall, 30-inch diameter tree is a big deal - that said, there are plenty of old growth forests (200+ year-old Douglas-firs on ridges, big 'ole Engelmann spruces in draws, stunted limber pines at treeline), they just aren't especially big, just old - trees grow slow up there

i'm not super familiar with Yellowstone, but given the fire history and topography, i would expect your 'old growth forests' to be found mostly on higher rocky ridges that escaped fire - i know that glacier national park has some large western red cedar groves, but i'm not sure those trees range south to yellowstone - idaho certainly has some larger trees, but still not comparable to the coastal pacific northwest - colorado and wyoming and utah seem to have miniature trees as well

personally, i would be curious where pockets of larger trees are hidden in the northern rockies - maybe somewhere in western montana or northern idaho - larch? spruce? doug fir? red cedar?

Ross Creek Cedars is probably the most popular grove of large trees in NW Montana. Awesome trees, but even these fine examples pale in comparison to the trees closer to the pacific coast.

http://www.libbymt.com/areaattractions/ ... cedars.htm

On the other hand, I believe that Specimen Ridge in the north part of Yellowstone has the remains of a couple of fossilized/petrified sequoias - so they had big trees in the distant past. One of these was a stump several feet high at one time, but had been picked away by hikers over the years.

Although not in Yellowstone park, the Eagle Creek trail which travels through the Washakie Wilderness and up to Eagle Pass on the park's east boundary has some groves of old growth. Which as I understand it it fairly rare in the Yellowstone ecosystem.

There are at least a couple of groves of old-growth Doug Fir and some old-growth Cottonwood trees too. The biggest of the Doug Firs are approx. 9 miles up the trail after you ford Eagle Creek.

You could could continue all the way up to Eagle Pass and then summit Eagle Peak (approx. 19 miles one way), which has a couple sections of 5.4 or so with mainly 3rd and some 4th class scrambling...you get to look into the heart of some pretty wild country from the top.[/Users/Russ/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2005/May 2005/angel island-yellowstone 05 179.jpg]

Chewy wrote:Ross Creek Cedars is probably the most popular grove of large trees in NW Montana. Awesome trees, but even these fine examples pale in comparison to the trees closer to the pacific coast.

http://www.libbymt.com/areaattractions/ ... cedars.htm

Wow! Those are amazing cedars! How far are those from Yellowstone?

(Crap! Now I see. Too far for the trip I have already planned. Alas!)