Fifteen years ago the Ecology Team had an active cohort who met regularly and explored our mountain neighborhood with great love and attention.

One of the subjects of their attention was a Ponderosa in the meadow near what we now think of as Iron Mountain Trailhead. In a blog post dated 2009, one of the group chronicles a trip to visit this tree, and plans to have a sample of it cored for age.

Here are side-by-side images of the tree, the left in 2009, the right this week in 2024.

Subsequent work with the tree established its age at 500 years old–putting its seedling stage at about the time Europeans ventured into the western hemisphere to establish their presence. Christopher Columbus, and so forth.

We’ve heard back now from Peter Brown at Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research, who has given us contact information for others involved in this early research. We’ll be following up.

I’m a bit taken back with what appear to be signs of aging over this past 15 years, after five centuries of growth. Even accounting for differences in seasons and artifacts of image-making, there appears to be substantially more dead growth in the branches, leaving noticeable open areas and needle-less areas across the bottom. Coloring is far less vibrant, but that may be a seasonal issue. (The forest areas in the background are deeper greens as well.)

Perhaps we need to be paying attention to this Old Guy. Are there preservation steps we should be taking to protect his future? Are there forestry maintenance issues we could be taking? What are the implications of cleaning out dead branches?