Camping Under Trees: Hazard-Tree Awareness and Campsite Selection for Backpackers

scary. We were hiking on trail, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, mid way between top and bottom of a small mountain. Heard something fierce cracking.. I froze in my steps and thought that an 18 wheeler had veered off the road up top and was crashing down the side of the mountain from above. Turns out a tremendous size tree had fallen and in its path crashed down about 3 or 4 other big trees.. snapping each one like dominos falling. Who knows how many smaller trees were also taken out by this slide, but it was loud and scary. I much prefer sleeping in the open then under trees, especially in winter during a storm. Unless of course we have hammocks, then its very cautious and aware of surroundings.

“Summer Branch Drop”. Hot. Trees take up too much water. And a large heavy limbs fall. Postmortem? Perfectly healthy large branch. Perfectly deadly. Redwood and Spruce branches 2 ft plus in diameter. We    are watchful year round.

I would emphasize extra campsite inspection at night.  Many times I have woken up, to seeing a widow maker in my campsite after I have made camp after dark.  It is easier said than done, because you are usually stopping at night to make camp because you are tired.  Any additional suggestions for avoiding tree risk when making camp at night?

I do not have any real good suggestions for the occasional tree with bark beetle damage? Maybe just assume if you seem some trees with beetle damage your campsite could have trees with beetle damage.

Only once I have witnessed a tree falling in forest.   It was a cotton wood tree that fell when I was eating lunch.  The tree  was approximately 30 yards away.   It was extremely loud when it fell over.  I learned the real meaning of “jump out of your skin!” idiom.

Yay or nay?

^^  Throw a tarp over it and call it good! ;>)

As a hammock camper, I don’t have the option of making camp in a clearing.  Sometimes the hardest part about finding a campsite is avoiding widowmakers.  More than once, I have set everything up, gotten into the hammock, looked up, and seen something that causes me to move.  If a tree or limb is suspicious, even the slightest breeze will keep me awake.

Late September 1983. My buddy DogTired and I stepped out of the car at the Fern L TH in RMNP and began xc-ing toward Forest Canyon which was (and is) trailless. It started raining as soon as we began walking. The rain turned to snow as we made our way over a ridge and down into the canyon proper.

Our goal was Forest L or maybe Arrowhead L at the upper end of the valley, about 5 miles. But the deadfall in the canyon was thick and we were not even half way there as the light began to fail. We changed our target to Raspberry Park, which our 7.5′ topo showed as a clear area.

The map was (and is) out of date. There is no park there, just slightly less dense forest. But it was sufficiently less dense that we could find a spot to pitch our tent, eat dinner in the dark and turn in.

Then the wind came up. I have no idea what the local windspeeds were, but Boulder’s Table Mesa NCAR station recorded its highest gust ever, 186 mph IIRC. Due to the density of the forest, windspeed at tent level was not too bad, maybe 20-30 mph. But all that wind energy being absorbed by the forest was causing a major blowdown event. We could hear trees breaking and crashing every 30s or so. It went on for hours.

We were pretty well trapped. There were no open spaces to move to and retreating back to the TH bushwhacking in the night would have been more dangerous than staying put. All we could do was shut our eyes, cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Somewhat to our surprise, we woke up alive. There were 6 inches of snow on the ground. We decided we had had sufficient adventure and headed back to the car. The forest, needless to say, was a disaster area. But we were alive and unharmed, even though we had no right to be. Funny how life works out that way sometimes.