Breckenridge
Somewhere in our save-the- whales world, though probably not in Colorado or any other Western state where mountainsides have been turned into reddish- brown swatches of dead and dying forests, there is, you might imagine, a pine beetle advocacy group.
These would likely be clog-wearing people who see the little, pointy-nosed, tree-killing son-of-a-gun as a part of nature, a misunderstood critter that has feelings and is deserving of our sympathy and understanding.
With any luck at all, this story will offend the daylights out of such people.
Because in this mountain ski town ravaged by the insect, a few people are fighting back. They’re taking some of the hundreds of thousands of trees killed by the pine beetle, trees still inhabited by the wood-boring bug that tunnels beneath the bark to lay eggs and raise its ugly little offspring. The dead trees are then put into a 38-foot-long, made-in-Finland log lathe and the bark is quickly stripped away.
And in just a few seconds, the whirring blades grind the insect villages into dead-bug mush, killing adults and larvae.
Let’s recap: One minute the creepy little pine beetles are chomping through the tree and trying to make life better for their children. The next minute all of them are deader than former Florida Rep. Mark Foley’s career.
Here’s where it gets even more interesting. The bark-stripped trees, now minus the pine beetles, are then turned on the lathe to create beautiful logs – logs that are used to build homes.
You can’t help but love the irony.
Unless you’re a pine beetle.
The company is called Breckenridge Timber to Log. It is the beetle-slaying brainstorm of the Dayton family that operates both the Breckenridge and nearby Frisco Nordic Centers and was, quite frankly, sick of seeing the daily destruction of the forests surrounding the ski centers and their home.
A family friend in Minnesota told them about the Round Tec 9000 log lathe that strips the bark and mulches the beetle and produces a lovely, finished pine log. The Daytons bought two of the lathes earlier this year at a cost of $75,000 each.
Last week, Gene and Therese Dayton and their son, 2002 Olympic ski jumper Matt Dayton, and other family members began their beetle-smashing logging operation on a permanent site just down the road at the old landfill in the town of Dillon.
Since the epidemic began several years ago, forestry biologists have come up with several accepted methods of dealing with beetle-killed trees and killing the adults and larvae. They include burning the trees, preferably in a fireplace so the little buggers can’t escape. Or chipping the tree into mulch. Or burying the infected wood under a minimum of 8 inches of soil.
The Daytons have officially introduced another option: Bring them your poor, your tired, your huddled masses of dead pine trees longing to be a house or a cabin or furniture.
For no charge – rather than paying someone to burn, chip or bury the dead trees – they will take the trees off your hands and introduce them to the Round Tec 9000.
“The cutting head rotates at 3,500 rpm and takes off the bark and 2 inches of wood with each pass,” said Gene Dayton. “It removes the bark and some wood and all the pine beetle adults and larvae and leaves us with a finished log.”
The computerized lathe also cuts custom-programmed grooves and saddle notches into the log, leaving it ready for building.
“They come out like Lincoln Logs,” said Therese Dayton. “Just like the ones you played with as a kid. Just bigger.”
As a bonus, she said, the logs, which the family is starting to sell, come with character. During their lethal work, the beetles transmit a disease called blue-stain fungi which contributes to the death of the tree. The fungi’s blue stain remains on the finished log.
“The markings are quite nice,” she said, adding that distressed wood for log homes and trim wood is increasingly popular.
And the Daytons, as you’d imagine, aren’t joining any pine beetle-protection groups.
“We don’t see much of the bugs,” said Matt, the main lathe operator for the family. “It turns them into bug juice. It’s nice to know we’re helping make some kind of dent in the population.”
Gene Dayton laughed.
“Feeling sorry for a pine beetle,” he said, “is like feeling sorry for a mosquito as it’s sucking your blood.”
Staff writer Rich Tosches writes each Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at rtosches@denverpost.com.
