For younger geocachers: Meet the Douglas Fir (and Its Tiny Neighbors!)
Look around you—these tall trees are Douglas firs, and they’re easy to spot once you know the trick. Check the ground for pinecones that may have been chewed by tiny, noisy squirrels called chickarees. You might hear them chattering as they guard their cone piles nearby!
Douglas firs have soft, flat needles that feel friendly to touch, but their coolest feature is their cones. Look closely and you’ll see something that looks like a little mouse tail and legs sticking out of each cone—no other tree has cones like this! The cones hang all over the tree, not just at the top. As you search for the cache, see how many cones you can find and spot the difference between younger and older trees. You’re standing in a forest full of clues—happy exploring!
The trees nearest this cache are easy to recognize in the Colorado forest, primarily because of the female cones. Look at this group of Douglas Firs, some young and some older and quite tall. Also look at the ground, where there are many cones that may have been cut by the local pine squirrels, also called chickarees. You may see one in this area, or at least hear its chattering bark, warning you that you are encroaching on its territory. These native squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus ) are the smallest you will find in Colorado, and are most common in spruce/fir and mixed forests at montane elevations. They are active during the winter, and collect cones in what is called a midden, to use as food in the winter. They have a matriarchal society, with each territory controlled by a female, while males roam freely.
But this cache is focused on the Douglas Fir trees, which are part of higher elevation forests. Like other conifers, they are wind pollinated, and each tree develops both male and female cones. Early explorers in the western U.S. often lumped this tree, which grows to great heights along the fog belt of the west coast, as either a member of the fir genus or a member of the spruce genus. Actually, it is not a true fir, since the cones hang down while those of true furs stand erect on the branches. Spruces also have cones that hang down below the branches, but those in Colorado have all their cones near the top of the tree. Its scientific name is Pseudotsuga menziesii and it is more related to the hemlock genus. It Latin genus name translates into false hemlock, and the species epithet is in honor of Archibald Menzies, who first collected samples on Vancouver Island in 1791.
In the 1880s, its common name was Douglas spruce, and as a result of a different kind of discovery, two brothers named Wetherill discovered a ruin site at what is now Mesa Verde National Park, and shinnied down one of these trees to find what is now called Spruce Tree House.
However, it has one characteristic of the other fir trees, with its needles being flat and soft to the touch. We remember this by the slogan Fir=flat=friendly. The needles are individually attached to the branch, and if you shake hands with a branch, you will feel the softness. This is much different that shaking hands with a spruce tree, for which the equivalent slogan is Spruce=square=sharp.
But once you understand the female cone, you will probably not forget how to identify the Douglas Fir from the other conifers here at Staunton State Park. The cone has scales between which the seeds develop, but look closely at what is attached between the scales. It looks very much like the hind legs and tail of a mouse. No other cone in the world has this characteristic. You will also notice that the cones are widely distributed among the branches of a mature tree, as opposed to the spruce with all the cones near the top.
The left photo below shows both the small male cones and the green female cones. The right photo below shows the mature female cones with the mice clearly visible.
Here in this group of trees you can also get a good look at the difference in the appearance of the bark between the young trees (photo on left) and the more mature trees (photo on right). These mature trees can grow up to 150 tall in the Rockies, but up to 250 tall on the west coast. These trees are valuable for lumber.
This cache is located within Staunton State Park, which has one public entrance along S. Elk Creek Road, six miles west of Conifer, about 1.5 miles off U.S. Highway 285. Parking along either side of S. Elk Creek Road and Upper Ranch Road adjacent to the park boundary is prohibited. All vehicles entering the park must have a daily park pass ($10) or a CO state park annual or special pass.
The Park is open year-round, and day use hours at 6:00 am to 10:00 pm. A walk-in campground (up to ¼ mile from parking) is open for public use, and overnight parking is currently permitted only for those staying in the campground. During summer and autumn weekends, the park may reach capacity, and cars are allowed to enter only if a parking space is available. Horse trailers are admitted if space is available for parking trailers,in the new, dedicated, unpaved parking lot. All Park trails are natural surface, some trails are hiker-only, but other trails are multiuse for bicycles and horses also. Information about the park can be found at Staunton State Park website
All visitors must follow park rules and regulations. These include dogs on leash at all times, clean up after pets, travel on developed trails to the extent feasible, leave no trace, respect areas closed for resource management, and be careful around wildlife (especially mountain lions, coyotes, and black bears). Fires are strictly prohibited, except for camp stoves with an on/off switch in the designated campsites and grilles found in the picnic areas. No motorized vehicles are allowed on trails within the Park. An exception is the special tracked chairs that the Park offers to visitors who cannot access selected trails on their own mobility. Pack your own trash out of the back country, and trash receptacles are located near the parking areas. Also, be prepared for changing weather, bring adequate water and footwear, and trails may be snow-covered or icy in winter.