Projects enhancing and restoring sites toward ecological principals
Contemplating riparian restoration on revetments or levees often has one staring down a 1:1 45 degree slope! How to get down there with plants and do the work without falling in the drink? In Spokane, a pair of men with river skills decided to give back to their playground creek with a novel approach to … More Willow staking on the Green River: from Kayaks
What can be learned from wildfires that burn in the urban interface? In September, the Almeda fire of southern Oregon burned hot and fast through much of the Bear Creek Greenway between Ashland and Medford. Burning as a tempest with hot embers blown hundreds of feet, the fire reached into nearby residential and commercial areas … More Almeda Wildfire – Tree Research
A late season snow pack, consolidated as it was on most slope aspects allowed for alpine ascents of peaks. The east fork of Hyndman Creek has tended to have a wolf pack moving through according to former surveys. The terrain limits free travel except for along valleys and a few ridge lines. Following a morning … More Wolf Surveys East Fork of Hyndman Creek
While the Spokane Parks Department mulls over how and when to develop an 8 river mile nature trail while restoring the ecology of the Hangman Creek corridor, one private property owner is moving ahead on 360 lineal feet of creek edge within the historic Vinegar Flats neighborhood. Nicoterra Trails has been hired for Design-Build to … More Hangman Creek – Ecological Restoration Design-Build
For two summers I’ve been surveying for wolves with the Wood River Wolf Project in Hailey, Idaho. Contributing to the story of the wolf, Coordinated by area biologists and for the benefit of our Peruvian shepards, the US Forest Service, and the wolf. Also see the great work of the Dutchers, Living with Wolves. Observing, listening, … More Wolf Surveys in the Pioneer Mountains of Idaho
Nicoterra Trails is developing a relationship with the Nimiipuu Protectors of the Nez Perce Tribe – in April we staged a planting event with the help of tribal forest resources staff Fields adjacent to the Community Gardens were recently cleared of poison hemlock and this enabled room for planting many dozens of small ponderosa … More Planting pines with Nez Perce youth in Lapwai, Idaho
“Money in the bank” is a good feeling for moving ahead. Scrawny Ponderosa Pine will use banked nutrients like any other tree, if those seeds find the right target and the nutrients are available to them. So who is the seedling banker of choice on the dry uplands of the Little Spokane River? Well, it … More sapling survival
Memories of alpine settings and long drives with canoe and tele-skis to explore only mountain haunts designated solely for solitude excursions; thats why I came and will return. Summer 2016 will engage Nicoterra Trails in study of larch and white bark pine in Northern Idaho. This photo was taken north of Stanley, a very different … More Beauty in Idaho Beckons
Many months ago, I was asked by a good friend, if I would consider building her a sweat lodge. She may have been impressed by my hand-built wooden boats sitting around the home, but I deferred the question to the peoples who inhabited the Northwest during it’s tribal bloom… They could steer her toward a … More A Sweat Lodge for Healing
April, new buds and fresh yellow-green leaves in the tree canopies and my thoughts turn to live willow stakes- a special planting maneuver. Any species of this genus Salix will work for this activity and the results, if timed right are well worth the effort. Down on the Little Spokane River, below Hastings Road on … More Willows on the Little Spokane River
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