I went to Estes Park to find the truth about the mountain pine beetle. The darkness at the heart of an invading colony would make even Joseph Conrad turn away.

Interest in the pine beetle in the Estes Valley is high. There were over 150 people at the talk given by beetle chaser, David Leatherman, who has logged over a million miles by car, plane and shoe leather to research the beetle. There was a lot of sex, drugs but not enough rock n roll for my taste.

I attended two smaller panels. Pretty much every chair was taken. Mostly local homeowners, some spray companies and related vendors. There were 22 vendors pitching everything from tree thinning and tree removal to landscape design, timber and wood reclamation firms specializing in the blue stain wood created by beetle kill trees. There were product vendors selling pherenomes, chitosan based fertilizers and a dancer that performs a warding-off-the-beetle jig on your property. Just kidding about the last one.

I’ll have more to say about pherenomes later. However according to Sky Stephens’ presentation they have only been tested in conjunction with preventive spraying of carbaryl and permethrin like this test in Aspen.

Leatherman is slowly making his way off into the sunset and there are several younger folks such as Stephens and Boyd Lebeda of Colorado State Forest Service and Chris Dahl, the Park Ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park who are poised to continue adding to the body of knowledge on the beetle.

This beetle does scare people. Scott Zurn, the Head of Public Works for Estes Park alluded to some denial in the town. I don’t blame the beetle deniers. When you drive in on Route 34 you hardly see any signs. There is even a map of positive hits in the Estes Valley and it’s just a handful.

However, from what I saw and heard, and after reviewing the scientific and anecdotal evidence, it seems like barring a tremendously cold 2010 to 2011 winter, that the mountain pine beetle will start hitting the valley hard in 2011. The hope is that ponderosa pines, which have more of a variety in age and bio-diversity than lodgepole pines will withstand the epidemic better.

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