- Rocky Mountain Research Station
- 240 West Prospect
- Fort Collins, CO 80526
- (970) 498-1100
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Home > Research Highlights > Ancient Trees
Ancient Trees at Red Mountain Ranch
In partnership with the Larimer County Open Lands Program, researchers from Rocky Mountain Research Station are investigating fire history in the grassland-shrubland-ponderosa pine ecotone in the Colorado Front Range foothills. Land managers wish to re-introduce natural fire into this landscape, which has a 15,000 year history of Native American occupation. While fire history is fairly well understood at higher elevations, it is not well known at the ecotone with the plains, where evidence of past fire is usually scarce. However, at Red Mountain Ranch, ancient trees on rock outcrops and in canyons preserve long records of fire and climate. Numerous living ponderosa pine trees date into the 1300s; one Douglas-fir germinated in the mid-1200s. Remnant wood is proving to be even older. The fire history is still under construction, but appears to have been strongly climate-driven. Researchers are collaborating with archaeologists and paleobotanists to reconstruct the history of this unique location. Larimer County acquired Red Mountain Ranch as a part of the Laramie Foothills: Mountains to Plains Project, a conservation partnership. The county hopes to open the ranch to the public in 2009.
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Rocky Mountain Research Station
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