is thought to be underlain by oil and natural gas deposits, but 

 no drilling has occurred. There is an old road and gravel pit 

 near Hwy 212 in the northwest corner of the area, and there is an 

 old jade mine somewhere in the area. The timber harvest and 

 roads have caused minimal degradation of the vegetation, and most 

 evidence has healed over to a large extent. There is an old 

 ditch diverted from North Line Creek and at least one building at 

 a spring near the head of North Line Creek. 



It is likely that there has been livestock grazing in the 

 southeast portion of the study area along Mill and Robinson draws 

 in the past. However, it does not appear that this area has been 

 grazed in the recent past. There appears to be some degradation 

 of grassland communities along lower treeline especially in the 

 area of North Line Creek. Livestock are currently grazed along 

 Rock Creek in the northeast corner of the area. 



There are relatively few exotics present in the study area, 

 and few of these species are considered a problem. Phleum 

 pratense is locally common in some areas in the North Line Creek 

 drainage. Cirsium arvense is common along the irrigation ditch 

 diverting North Line Creek. Small colonies of Centaurea maculosa 

 and Carduus nutans occur in the burned area along upper Robinson 

 Draw, and Phleum pratense and Bromus inermis are common in the 

 creek bottom. At this time, infestations of pernicious exotics 

 are still small enough to be contained or eliminated. Mapping 

 along roads and other areas of disturbance, especially in the 

 low-elevation burn areas, should be completed followed by control 

 measures. 



Nearly all of the forest communities in the study area 

 experienced frequent fires before commencement of fire 

 suppression. Low intensity, stand-thinning fires were common in 

 the Psemen/Phymal, Psemen/ Juncom and Abilas/Arncor habitat types 

 (Fischer and Clayton 1983) . Absence of fire has lead to 

 overstocked stands and increased hazard of stand-replacing fire 

 in some areas. The absence of fire in the Abilas/Vacsco habitat 

 type during the recent past has probably not yet had a major 

 impact as mean stand-replacing fire interval is ca. 50-100 years 

 (Fischer and Clayton 1983), and growth is slow enough that Pinus 

 contorta still dominates many stands. Much of the area on the 

 eastern periphery of the study area is Pinus f lexilis woodland 

 with increasing numbers of Pseudotsuqa menziesii in the higher 

 stands. These shrubland-f orest ecotone areas likely had high 

 fire frequencies (Arno and Gruell 1983), and trees and shrubs 

 were probably much less common. Studies on the role of fire in 

 the east portion of the study area are currently under way (K. 

 Reid, pers. comm.). 



