On some of southeast Wyoming’s popular hiking and biking trails, a chainsaw — or at least an axe — might be standard equipment.
Recent severe windstorms blew over a host of dead trees, and even snapped some live ones, dropping them across trails everywhere.
“There were sections where I had to ‘jungle-gym’ my way through,” Quinton Merrill told Cowboy State Daily on Monday, just after finishing a three-hour hike that started and ended at the Little Laramie Trailhead parking lot.
The parking lot is above Centennial west of Laramie in the Snowy Range Mountains. It’s is a popular departure and return spot for hikers.
Merrill, who is from Michigan and is in Wyoming for work, decided to get in some early season hiking at a time when snowdrifts still cover some sections of trail.
Laramie native Richard Nelson had also just finished a hike and was visiting with Merrill in the parking lot. He told Cowboy State Daily that the deadfall across trails this spring was about the worst he’s ever seen.
“There are trees that have died from drought, then trees that died from beetle kill and trees that were just blown over by the wind all piled on top of each other,” he said.
Much of the forest and the trails passing through it were a mess of “jackstraw,” he said, using a common term for jumbled fallen timber.
A pine beetle epidemic left vast “ghost forests” of bare, dead trees across the Snowy Range Mountains. And those trees can be easily pushed over by high winds.
It’s Bad All Over
The damage wasn’t limited to the Snow Range Mountains.
In the Laramie Mountains between Laramie and Cheyenne, crews recently removed 70 fallen trees from the popular Happy Jack trails. And much more work is expected in the coming months, Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest spokesman Aaron Voos told Cowboy State Daily.
Voos added that he didn’t have any exact numbers or data regarding how many miles of trails were affected. But “large areas of blowdown” are common whenever high winds strike during the spring and summer, he said.
With forest service crews stretched thin, volunteer organizations are vital to keeping trails clear, he added.
After recent severe wind storms, one tree pictured here fallen across the Meadow Loop trail in the Snowy Range Mountains near Laramie, while another has a cracked trunk and will likely fall soon. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Little Laramie Trailhead in the Snowy Range Mountains near Laramie is a popular spot for hikers, but there is downed timber – blown over by recent windstorms – throughout the area. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily) 
A “widow maker,” or precariously-balanced tree broken by recent high winds, looms over the Meadow Loop trail in the Snowy Range Mountains near Laramie. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily) 
Piles of crisscrossed fallen trees, called jackstraw, are a common sight on the Medicine Bow National Forest near Laramie after recent windstorms. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily) 
Fallen trees, blown down by recent severe winds, are a common sight on trails in the Medicine Bow National Forest near Laramie. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily) 
Even some live trees were snapped by recent severe winds on the Medicine Bow National Forest in the Snowy Range Mountains near Laramie. (Mark Heinz, Cowboy State Daily)
Rail Trail In Bad Shape
A volunteer group called Friends of the Medicine Bow Rail Trail has already been busy this month, members Jay Whitman and Amber Travsky of Laramie told Cowboy State Daily.
“Things are bad all over. On some of those lesser-known trails, it will take a while to clear them,” Whitman said.
The group recently removed about 90 fallen trees from a section of the Medicine Bow Rail Trail.
That 21-mile hiking and biking trail runs from the Pelton Creek trailhead at the south end to the Dry Park trailhead in the north, including a 1-mile detour at Fox Park.
The trees were removed from the section running from Pelton Creek to the Woods Creek trailhead, near Highway 230, Whitman said.
And he’s worried the worst is yet to come.
“Much of the trail to north of Woods Creek is still covered in snow,” he said. “But when we get in there, I think the section of trail running from Lincoln Gulch to Lake Owen is going to be the worst of it.”
Much of the Rail Trail runs though sections hit by the Mullen Fire, which burned 176,878 acres in fall 2020.
That left vast swaths of standing dead timber, Travsky said.
“There are just so many trees that are ready to fall through there,” she said. “And we get a big windstorm, we get hit.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
