IIMTRODUCTIOIM 



During the past 3 years, the Bitterroot Resource Conservation and Development Com- 

 mittee (RC&D) , the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, the Forest Service, 

 and the Bitterroot National Forest have worked together to identify and evaluate alter- 

 natives for expanding forest-based industry in the Bitterroot Valley. The level of 

 unemplo>Tnent and underemployment is high among Bitterroot Valley workers who depend, 

 at least in part, upon woods work for a living. At the same time, substantial volumes 

 of available wood are not being utilized: extensive dead timber, smaller stems in stag- 

 nated stands, and material left on the site as residue following conventional logging 

 operations (fig. 1). These conditions ty]5ify mature lodgepole pine stands, which until 

 recently have been only lightly utilized for timber products. 



Figure 1. --Typical logging slash in mature lodgepole pine. The sound dead material 

 could provide up to 100 pieces per acre of houselogs, rails, and fenceposts . 



1 



