Every Colorado camper has a vital role in camping with care, and today’s post is about the aspen trees.
An aspen tree is rooted with an entire cluster, clone, grove or stand of aspen trees. When one tree is damaged or sick, the entire colony can quickly be damaged or even die.
The National Parks Service tell us that aspen bark doesn’t peel off like the bark of white birch trees. Besides, the bark of every tree is a vital layer, much like your own skin. No bark should be forced off of any tree, birch or otherwise.
Please don’t peel the bark!
The bark is needed for the trees ability to carry nutrients to the entire tree. The NPS also says, “… beneath the thin white outer bark is a thin photosynthetic green layer that allows the plant to synthesize sugars and keep growing even during the winter when all other deciduous trees go into dormancy.”
When you strip even one small piece of the bark, you are inviting insects and fungus into the tree. The tree and, in the case of aspens, the entire colony or grove, then becomes more susceptible to disease and less able to fend it off.
SOUVENIRS
There is a natural way you can take home an aspen bark souvenir, if that’s what you have to have to remember your Colorado camping trip. See if the nearby camp store offers some strips of the bark. WAIT, you wonder how it’s fair they can collect the bark but you can’t? Relax! The property owners might find downed limbs from storm damage and use its bark to offer as souvenirs.
STEWARDS OF THE LAND
Always remember that the land you camp on is owned by someone, regardless of whether you are camping at a family-owned campground, a large camping resort, a state or federal park, or BLM land. A person, family, corporation or the state’s or nation’s tax payers own the land.
We’ve heard from many land owners (include managers of public lands) that nature is taking a beating.
We can tell you with full sincerity that the owners of family-owned campgrounds, such as the owners of Aspen Acres Campground in Rye (whose photos are showing here), purchased their land with hard-earned money and they bought it because they love the land and trees that were on it. They opened the campground to welcome guests to enjoy nature. When people hurt their trees, they are hurting much more than the trees, which is severe enough! They’re breaking the hearts of the business owner who willingly allowed people to come and enjoy nature, plus they’re hurting things for future generations of campers.
Please:
Leave the bark!
Look only with your eyes and your camera lens!
Care for Colorado.
Recreate responsibly.
Leave no trace.
We thank the owners of Aspen Acres Campground for supplying us with pictures taken today of the recent damage that’s been done to their aspens. We know thousands of outdoor enthusiasts and those of us who have spent years catering to those adventurists are pained by these images. Please, recreate responsibly!
Part of a healthy stand of aspen trees at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Bark stripped from an aspen tree at Aspen Acres Campground in Rye Colorado
Again, please:
Leave the bark!
Look only with your eyes and your camera lens!
Care for Colorado.
Recreate responsibly.
Leave no trace.
