By: Yeim We ’24 MFS and Sara Santiago ’19 MF
Spring break 2023 took our students from forests under heavy snowfall in Wyoming to the humid rainforests of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The two weeks of spring break provide critical, hands-on, boots-on-the-ground, place- and people-based forest experiences.
In Wyoming, Jules Chen ’24 MF and Jake Barker ’24 MF met with their Ucross High Plains Stewardship Initiative project partner, TNC Wyoming Forest Program Director Carli Kierstead ’18 MEM. They visited an active logging site on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, a 192.5-acre pre-commercial thin unit within the Landscape Vegetation Analysis Project (LaVA), that is meant to reduce fuel loads and promote quaking aspen. In their tour of the sawmill at Saratoga Forest Management (SFM) in Saratoga, WY, Chen and Barker explored the manufacturing processes of lumber, wood chips, and wood shavings for various markets. They also met District Ranger Jason Armbruster (Hayden/Brush Creek) to learn more about adaptive management and public forest use and values in southern Wyoming.
Jake Barker looks on (bottom left), hoping to see a log truck emerge from the active sale site on the Medicine-Bow Routt National Forest. Here, the skidders use their blades to keep the road clear for access. Photo by: Julia Chen.
Jules Chen admires the blue stains in a stack of Saratoga Straights, 2x4 framing lumber produced by Saratoga Forest Management. The blue is caused by a fungus brought in by mountain pine-beetle when it attacks the tree. Photo by: Jake Barker.
New York Botanical Garden’s Fabian Michelangeli took students in his Tropical Field Botany course to on a unique journey to learn how to identify a whopping 100 tropical plant families, with a focus on woody taxa, in three distinct forest types in Costa Rica. At each location, the students were exposed to different types of tropical forests and learned about the families that thrive there. At Cuericí, they explored the cloud forests of Costa Rica and identified plant families in that region. At Palo Verde, they delved into the families that grow in dry tropical forests, while at La Selva, they studied those that thrive in moist tropical forests.
At around 3,000 meters above sea level, students identify plants in the cloud forest, the first of three forest types in Costa Rica. Photo by: Fabian Michelangeli.
The Southern Forestry Field Trip is one of the oldest forestry traditions at Yale. Starting way back in 1907, this field trip gives students a chance to learn about forest management, operations, and restoration in one of the major wood-producing regions in the United States. This year, students explored the pine and lowland forests of North Carolina. They participated in prescribed fires, learned about longleaf pine ecology and restoration efforts, visited wood product facilities, observed forest operations on intensively managed plantations.
Jennifer Jung ’24 MF (left) and Amelia Napper ’24 MF observe long leaf pine regeneration, one of the most charismatic pine saplings, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Photo by Brandon Wilson Radcliffe ’24 MF.
The field trip visits NC State University’s working and learning forest, the Hofmann Forest, in Maysville, NC to observe their management and operations practices. Photo by: Isaac Merson ’23 MEM.
Lecturer Simon Queenborough hosted students in his “Tropical Field Ecology” course on a field trip to Ecuador. Students explored various forest ecosystems and learned from scientists and experts about current research in the field. With their growing knowledge of tropical ecology, students designed and developed independent field research team projects.
Lecturer Simon Queenborough (right) explains how to identify the melastomataceae family. Photo by Yeim We ‘24 MFS.
The group ascends to the top of a canopy tower to bird. Photo by YSE student.
Students delight in interacting with butterflies at the Hosteria Mariposas de Mindo in Mindo, Ecuador. Photo by YSE student.
