MONTANA—It’s November, and a Rocky Mountain Research Station field crew is hiking through golden larches and crunching through snow in the hills of northwestern Montana. As frosty breaths fill the air and cold seeps through gloves, they fondly recall popping freshly plucked huckleberries in their mouths and feeling the warmth of the summer sun through soft green branches just a few months before.

“One of the coolest things about this job is how we’ve seen the forest change through the seasons,” comments crew lead Sahalie Pittman. “We saw larch seedlings bud in the spring, we studied the understory once annual plants emerged, we looked at sticks for fuel surveys in the fall, and now we’re coring trees in the snow.” 

This past field season, Pittman and Forest Service technicians Rylee Aksamit and Lydia Hoffman worked alongside a Montana Conservation Corps crew to collect data for the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change study on the Flathead National Forest and Coram Experimental Forest. The study is an international collaboration of scientists investigating ways to help forests adapt to future climates. In northwest Montana, climate is trending toward drier summers and longer fire seasons. This, in turn, may impact tree health and forest structure, such as the size and age of trees, or the species and arrangement of plants on the forest floor. 

Experimental forests and adjacent areas have been used for decades for long-term studies that physically and biologically demonstrate how various silviculture treatments affect forests. Researchers at the Montana Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change site have implemented various forest treatments looking at a range of ways to help forests adapt. These include thinning at different rates and different timber harvest designs combined with planting western larch, western white pine and ponderosa pine seedlings. The seedlings were chosen specifically for characteristics that might help them adapt to future climate conditions. The study will test the real-world feasibility of these management options and their effectiveness for growing forests that are more resilient to warmer dryer growing seasons, drought and fire. 

2024 was an important year for this study location. Shortly after the treatments were completed in May, the field crew was busy measuring trees and recording other information to complete the first set of post-treatment data.

“It’s awesome being part of a long-term study, especially in the early years because our data provides a baseline that future information will be compared to”, says Aksamit. 

The crew spent the summer stationed at a bunkhouse in the Coram Experimental Forest, which was near the field sites. Each day, they traveled to the sites and recorded data. While the memory of snacking on huckleberries is sweet, the work is hard, days are long, weather is unpredictable, and terrain can be challenging. Finding ways to enjoy the hard work and cultivating respect and friendships helped create a positive and supportive team dynamic. 

Throughout the field season, the crew learned to use new survey methods and a variety of forestry tools. They cored trees and counted the rings to determine tree ages, identified plants growing on the forest floor and in middle shrub layers, and quantified woody material that could burn or be fuel for forest fires.

“Coming from a job as an electrical engineer in Manhattan, this season was a transformative opportunity for me,” explains Lina McCary, a Montana Conservation Corp fellow. “I gained experience and technical skills in this position that will be invaluable in helping me take a first step in developing a career in natural resources.”

This type of applied forestry research helped many on the crew think about future career goals in ways they hadn’t considered before. “This opportunity opened my eyes to the decisions that forest managers make and the ways we can prepare our forests for the future. This is definitely something I’d be interested in focusing on in my career,” explains Hoffman.

Jobs and partnerships with the research station allow Forest Service technicians and interns to build lifelong skills and friendships while exploring a variety of career paths. In addition, they provide value to the agency by allowing programs to recruit crews for big impact, short term efforts like this year’s Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change data collection.

“If not for having all six of us on the crew we’d still be trying to identify wildflowers under the snow!” laughs Hoffman. “We’re grateful we had all hands on deck.”