Noticias

Telluride is nestled between mountains covered in lush, green forests that define the region’s landscape. But if you look closely, you might notice that many trees have lost their needles or vibrant color.

“I have a lot of grief with it. You know, kind of emotional feeling,” said Marie Gamweger, a longtime local.

“I think that’s a totally legitimate response,” said Dr. Jason Sibold, a biogeographer with Colorado State University. “You know, I’m the scientist, I’m not supposed to feel emotions or anything about what I study, but when I made your mortality map, you know, for this area, it was like, ‘Oh man.’ It’s sad.”

Telluride tree lovers met at the Wilkinson Public Library on Friday morning before embarking on a hike up Bear Creek with Sibold, who has been studying forest conditions in the area for more than a decade.

“My name is Jason Sibold. And I am a biogeographer and I focus on the distribution of trees and disturbance ecology, things like wildfires and drought impacts and bark beetles,” he said. “And I’ve been working here in Telluride for just over 10 years, through a collaboration with the town and the county to monitor forest change and impacts of climate change in Bear Creek.”

Though the trail was glowing with greenery and rich with the sounds and smells of the forest, the group was there to discuss the ongoing tragedy of tree mortality.

“And you can see there’re a few dead ones and there are a few dusty red ones,” Sibold said. “That’s Doug Fir beetle. So, I haven’t noticed that these have been defoliated by Western Spruce Budworm, but there certainly has kind of been over the last about nine years a progression from down valley up valley. Now they’re getting up above some of those Doug Fir above the cemetery up here.”

Sibold said Douglas Fir beetles pose a serious threat to Telluride’s forests.

“What we have seen so far is that nothing survives. It takes out everything,” he said. “This is a concern obviously. Those trees are not only pretty and great habitat and sucking up carbon from the atmosphere, they’re also holding a lot of stuff in place.”

As the group moved up the Bear Creek Trail, Sibold pointed out which species are most vulnerable.

“As we walk up here, most of the trees you’re going to see are going to be Subalpine Fir,” he said. “In terms of drought resistance, this is your least drought-resistant species.”

Gamweger said she joined the walk to find community around the loss she’s witnessing.

“Well, I’m a longtime local, I’ve lived here since 1997 full time, and I’ve been watching the trees dying all around me, and haven’t really noticed a lot of people talking about it,” she said. “So when I saw this program at the library, I immediately jumped on it. And I also have personally a lot of grief with the death that I’m seeing, so I kind of need to work through that, and education is one way that could support me.”

Not all hope is lost. After the group searched in an avalanche site for signs of new tree growth, Sibold shared some ways Telluride could responsibly protect the long-term health of local forests, such as starting common garden experiments.

“We have to be adaptable, as adaptable as the forest is,” Sibold said. “We have to be as or more adaptable in our thinking, in our expectations of the landscape, as well as kind of innovative in how we do things and how we live in this landscape, I think, moving forward. I’m a super optimist, but it’s not going to be easy, right? But I think this is what we’re geared for. We’ve done really hard things in the past — amazingly hard things. I think we can do this.”

Though he is extensively knowledgeable about the Telluride landscape, Sibold said it’s not his role to dictate policy.

“What will determine the next steps,” he said, “is culture and values — and that’s up to Telluride.”