the Beaver Lake Project area. 



Comparing the entire Stillwater State Forest 

 with the 1930s' data from the Upper Flathead 

 Valley shows that Stillwater State Forest is low 

 in stands of the seedling /sapling age /struc- 

 ture class and high in stands that are old, 

 relative to the 1930s' data. The Beaver Lake 

 project area is relatively small and so, given 

 the often-large sizes of natural disturbances, 

 should be viewed to simply show the age/ 

 class representation in the project area. This 

 area has a high percentage of old growth (57%) 

 and a very low percentage of seedling /sapling 

 stands (3%). This age-class-structure represen- 

 tation in the project area would indicate the 

 lack of any large stand-replacement event, 

 such as wildfire, in the area for the last 100+ 

 years. Many of the pole-sized stands in the 

 area are lodgepole, a result of wildfires that 

 partially entered the area in the 1910 fire 

 season. Much of the harvesting retained a 

 portion of the overstory and did not affect the 

 age-class structure at the stand level, but 

 rather created small pockets of regeneration 

 within stands. 



COVER-TYPE 

 REPRESENTATION 



mixed-conifer cover types are shade tolerant 

 and their representation increases in stands as 

 the interval between disturbances, such as 

 wildfires, is lengthened. The western larch/ 

 Douglas-fir cover type is currently 

 underrepresented on the forest in reference to 

 historic data; western larch is not shade toler- 

 ant and the species has historically been 

 perpetuated through fairly intensive distur- 

 bances, such as wildfire. Although this data 

 sort indicates that the current amount of 

 western white pine cover type is similar to 

 what occurred historically, the number of 

 western white pine that occupy the canopy as 

 overstory dominants has decreased dramati- 

 cally over the last decade due to the white 

 pine blister rust infection and mountain pine 

 beetle infestations. 



The Beaver Lake Project area is not typical of 

 Stillwater State Forest, as a whole, in cover 

 type representation. The western larch/ 

 Douglas-fir cover type currently occupies 80% 

 of the project area, and the mixed-conifer 

 cover type occupies only 14%, approximately. 



The following Figure III-3 and Table 

 ni-2 illustrate the percentage of 

 forested grovmd that is/was occu- 

 pied by a certain cover type. The 

 comparison shown includes the 

 Upper Flathead Valley historic 

 data, current conditions on 

 Stillwater State Forest, and appro- 

 priate conditions on Stillwater 

 State Forest that were derived 

 from current data and run through 

 a filter, as described earlier in this 

 chapter. 



Data indicates, as is illustrated by 

 Figure 111-3 and Table 111-2, that the 

 mixed-conifer stands are currently 

 considerably overrepresented in 

 reference to both historic condi- 

 tions and conditions that DNRC 

 feels would be appropriate. Many 

 of the species that make up the 



FIGURE III-3-PERCENTAGE OF AREA BY COVER TYPE 



PERCENTAGE OF AREA BY COVER TYPE 



PP DF WL/DF WP LP MC SAF 



[ 1 Historic U pper Flathead Valley 



m Current Condition Stillwater State Forest 



H Appropriate Condition Stillwater State Forest 



(ffl-4; 



Stillwater State Forest • Beaver Lake Timber Sale Project 



