Paulson Pass/Castlegar BCTS 2025 Clearcuts (Considerable overlap with Old growth deferral areas)
We ski toured into BCTS cutblock TA2374-3 on December 31 2024. We had a strong suspicion there were likely big trees in the block (and in block TA2374-2 because these blocks overlap with Old Growth Deferral Areas (OGDA.) Even though we were only able to see a tiny portion of one block, we found big trees right away.
We found this magnificent little valley that had some pretty huge trees in it at the bottom. It is hard to know if these trees are technically old growth or not (140+ years old in this area) without using an increment boring tool. With these trees growing virtually right in a small stream, it is quite possible that even though they are pretty huge, they aren't actually old growth yet.
This view is looking south at the mountain side from the highway. If you've driven from Castlegar to the top of the Paulson Pass you know how badly logged out this area has been by BCTS over the past two decades.
The purple outlined shapes are the 4x huge clearcuts, the red are Old Growth Deferral Areas, and the orange areas are Recruitment Old Growth Deferral Areas.
This was beautifully diverse forest. Pictured here is a nice fir and cedar that have grown beside each other over 80 or 90 years. It appears as if much of this forest burned at some point in the past leaving a few fire survivors.
While perhaps not meeting the Provinces narrow definition of old growth in the interior, this forest obviously showed many old growth attributes The lichen on this downed tree was particularly vibrant a beautiful with snow all around it.