Denver Magazine / Denver Magazine December 2008 / Into the Woods

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Into the Woods

Nothing says Christmas in Colorado like a tree grown in our own forests.

The month of December can only mean one thing (ok, besides skiing), and that's the arrival of the holiday season in all its festive glory. I can think of no other time of year as filled with tradition. For me, coming from a family of Belgian, Sicilian and Polish immigrants, those traditions take on wonderful variety. On December 6, we celebrate St. Nicholas Day, the Belgian Christmas. One week later, December 13, it's St. Lucia Day, the Sicilian Christmas. And come Christmas morning, December 25, we heartily slice into mock cake, a Polish sweet bread with a poppyseed filling.

Each family has its own varied Christmas traditions. But no single tradition ties all the others together quite like the Christmas tree. For me, it started in Long Island, NY, when I was a child, and my family would drive out to a tree farm on the East End where we'd cut down a live tree. Years later, when my wife and I got married and moved to northern New Jersey, we would drive north into the mid-Hudson Valley to find our perfect evergreen. When we moved to Colorado more than four years ago, the annual tradition of cutting down a Christmas tree traveled west with us.

After searching for a local Christmas tree farm, however, I was dismayed that I couldn't find a single one. Then I stumbled on the Front Range Christmas Tree Program, and although I didn't know it at the time, a new twist on my old tradition was in the making. Through the program, you can buy an inexpensive $10 permit and venture into designated areas of our national forests in search of a Christmas tree. It seemed like a perfectly Colorado way to continue a tradition that, for me, was born in New York.

The practice of cutting down Christmas trees on National Forest land dates back to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Roosevelt actually spoke out against cutting down the trees, in large part because of the widespread deforestation he had already observed. But his sons insisted that it was important, and Roosevelt's friend and cabinet member Gifford Pinchot (who went on to become the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service) believed cutting down Christmas trees was actually good for the forest.

Pinchot was right. Forests of ponderosa pine historically averaged 40 to 50 trees per acre, but decades of forest fire suppression allowed the forests to grow in density, up to 400 to 500 trees per acre. So it is that, today, cutting down a Christmas tree on National Forest land benefits the forest in two ways (not to mention the joy you receive hunting for and finding your tree): The tree you cut helps to thin the forest, mitigating the threat of catastrophically large forest fires, and your $10 permit helps fund environmental restoration efforts. What's not to like?

In fact, the tradition is justifiably popular and has caught on like, well, wildfire. Last year, nearly 30,000 permits were sold statewide. Of those, some 17,000 came from the Front Range. In fact, the Buffalo Creek cutting area has become so popular the U.S. Forest Service has had to issue a quota, capping the permits at 7,000 for that one area, and by the time you read this article, those permits will have sold out weeks before (but don't worry; there are no-limit areas available. Check out the list and contact information below).

Some families have returned 30 years in a row to cut down their trees. Native Coloradans inherited the tradition from their parents, who, in turn, inherited it from theirs. I've seen engagements (as he knelt to cut down the tree, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring) and extended families gathered around oil barrels filled with burning logs, barbecuing lunch and making a day of it. As word of our tradition has spread to friends, we've brought them along, and they've become a part of the fun.

On our first foray in 2004, my wife, Kelli, and I gathered our boots and snowshoes and a bow saw and headed to the Elk Creek cutting area in Winter Park. With our permit in hand, we drove my Jeep way up into the forest on a snow-packed 4WD road and then set off into the cold winter wonderland in search of our tree.

"You won't find a perfect tree," says Jane Leche, public affairs specialist for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S Forest Service and Front Range Christmas Tree Program coordinator, "but you will find the perfect tree for you." Which is exactly what happened to Kelli and me. We weren't in a tree farm. We were in our national forest, a wild landscape with wild trees.

Our first Colorado Christmas tree was a lodgepole pine, which we unimaginatively named Lodgepole. It didn't look anything like the trees we'd bought in years past from tree farms. It had no perfect taper from top to bottom, and while its branches were sturdy, the tree wasn't full. It had plenty of gaps. Those gaps, we discovered, were a wonderful blessing; they offered tons of spaces and nooks where we could hang our ornaments. Leche was right. That lodgepole wasn't a perfect tree in the traditional sense, but it was a perfect tree nonetheless.

In the years since, we've returned to the Winter Park cutting area, where we've discovered a beautiful stand of Colorado blue spruce. The following Christmas, we welcomed Sprucey into our home, and the year after that, a tree we named Blue, even though he gave us plenty of holiday cheer (he was a Colorado blue spruce, after all).

This year, we'll return once again to Colorado's national forests in search of a tree. My wife and I are expecting our first child December 14, and so surely, our Christmas traditions are about to change again in a very big way. But one thing remains certain: come next year, you'll find me snowshoeing through the forest, searching for the perfect Colorado Christmas tree.

What You Need to Know

Front Range Christmas Tree Program information can be found at fs.fed.us/r2/recreation/christmas/index-front-range-areas.shtml

Core Cutting Dates: December

6 "“ 14 (some areas have extended dates)

Permit Cost:

$10 per tree with a maximum of five per person

Cutting Areas:

Fraser/Winter Park Area, Sulphur Ranger District, Arapaho National Forest

970.887.4100

Red Feather Lakes Area, Canyon Lakes Ranger District, Roosevelt National Forest

970.295.6700

Rampart Range Road Area, Pikes Peak Ranger District, Pike National Forest

719.477.4221

Fairplay Area, South Park Ranger District, Pike National Forest

719.836.2031

Buffalo Creek Area, South Platte Ranger District, Pike National Forest

303.275.5610