Even a skinny tree makes quite a WHUMP when it hits the ground.
As we are there to hear it, an age-old philosophical question remains unsettled. In any case there are the echoes, reverberating through the misty morning and across the island to herald that forest thinning at Strawberry Hill Park has, in fact, begun.
WHUMP.
“It’s a shocking sound for such a small tree, isn’t it?,” reflects Lydia Roush, Parks Superintendent for Bainbridge Metro Parks. “But they’re so dense, and Douglas fir is heavy.”
It’s a first-of-its-kind project on the island: restoring an overdense, profoundly unhealthy forest through aggressive thinning and strategic replanting, while at the same time carving out chute-like paths for the new bike trails that soon will criss-cross down the hillside.
About 40 percent of the trees are coming out. In the shadow of those that remain, Strawberry Hill Bike Park will be built.
“We want to show the community that recreation can take place in a space where we’re also doing restoration,” Roush says. “These things don’t have to be conflicting, they can go hand in hand. We can improve the ecological vitality of this site, and also provide a space for the public to come and use.”
Intensive restoration has been underway since shortly after the 10-acre parcel was added to Strawberry Hill Park’s northwest corner in 2022, funded by a $1 million grant from the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation. The former Hayashida property was purchased for conservation, the bike park and an expanded dog park.
Student Conservation Corps and volunteers from Bainbridge Island Mountain Bike Club, Gear Grinders, Bainbridge Island Cross-country and other clubs have spent the past 18 months stripping the hillside of invasives, grubbing out countless bushels of the noxious holly and ivy that had overrun much of the wooded hillside.
The trees themselves are a haggard lot. Painfully crowded together and undernourished from years of competing for soil and sunlight, the firs have shot skyward with barren trunks and mere puffballs of green at the top.
Still, there’s timber value in the harvest. The cut has only been going on for a few days, but a few dozen logs are already sorted into piles to be trucked off to waiting mills.
“Those are the utility poles. Those are the saw logs,” says Tom Marici, of Kirkland-based Dutchman Logging, who leads the two-man forestry crew on this job. He gestures to some especially wan-looking logs off to the side. “That’s firewood.”
An estimated 30 truckloads will leave the site. Some of the better trees are bound for Tacoma’s Stella-Jones Corp, which sells utility poles, railroad ties, and other treated timber products.
On this morning, Stella-Jones buyer Matthew Roth is scouting the site for pole-quality logs. His criteria: a straight trunk, few limbs, and well handled by the logger. A 40-foot pole-quality log will show at least 12 inches diameter at the base.
“I do see some opportunities here,” Roth says. “I wouldn’t say it’s loaded with what I’m looking for, but if a guy’s careful, he can find some. It’s really up to the logger to do a good job picking them out.”
Once milled and treated, the poles will be shipped to utilities around the United States, in Canada, even Ireland.
“One could wind up back here in your neighborhood,” Roth says. “You just don’t know.”
The harvest continues through March. With the hillside opened up to sunlight, the understory will be replanted as bike park construction begins, hopefully this fall.
For the volunteer Strawberry Hill Bike Park Committee, the thinning heralds a new and highly visible milestone in the campaign to build the island’s first-ever dedicated bike park.
“As the forest thinning progresses and opens up the land, and sky, that is to be Strawberry Hill Bike Park, we now have a clearer view of the exciting possibilities for trails and features,” says David Maron, Bike Park committee member. “We feel real, tangible enthusiasm for the upcoming digging, building and bike riding. We can’t wait!”
SAVE THE DATE(S) – The Strawberry Hill Bike Park capital campaign will formally launch with a weekend of fundraising events including a bicycling Movie Night, a community bike ride and more, March 22-24. The schedule will be announced soon – sign up here for Bike Park updates. Business sponsors and other prospective early donors to the Bike Park campaign should email mary@biparksfoundation.org.
Learn more: www.bikestrawberry.org.
