Wood Chips in Action

We’ve partnered with the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (CDLT) for a number of years installing a defensible space demonstration site in our shrub steppe ecosystem. This has involved a prescriptive method for removing and thinning woody shrubs including Sage and Bitter Brush. The site demonstrates total removal of woody shrubs within the first 30ft from a structure or roadway, and gradual thinning to achieve roughly a 15-20% canopy cover in the 30-100ft zone. It’s a work in progress and certainly warrants a lengthier blog post as the project evolves.

What was really cool to see was the wood chips we generated at Jacobson have been used to reduce muddy spring trail conditions. Volunteers from CDLT have also collected chips from other shrub-steppe fuels reduction projects nearby and laid them further and further up the trail. Our foothills trails this time of year are as muddy as trails get, and they look great thanks to partnership and creative use of the chipped material from project sites around Wenatchee.

Here are a few photos from a visit March 2nd.