sdcfia
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- Sep 28, 2014
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The juniper trees are a HUGE part of what they did. I have seen many junipers that have been formed in to full circles, and even 2 that were helixed together perfectly. For the most part, the ones that have mattered most in my experience has been either the shaped and burned, (as a treatment to make them hard as stone), gunsight trees, and cut junipers that start at approx. 1 foot high, graduating over several to 10 feet or higher. There are also trees that mark the trail, tell you when to stop and turn around, to make a fork, and so on. Some are cut in specific ways telling you to look high, look low, and to stay the same eleveations around a hill or mountain. The junipers that have been blazed were very important to them, (at least in my opinion), as juniper bark is would dull axes quickly. They have also been important to me, as when they begin to grow over the blaze, they can be ring dated. The oldest I have been able to date is circa 1730 when the blaze was made.
There are so many different pinyon pine, juniper, and once in a great while a mountain mahagoney that your will find blazed, someone should do a treatise on the subject, much as Sandy1 has done with this revealing thread..
If you want to use trees for permanent markers, forget the pines, aspens, etc., as their lifespans are relatively short and are prone to disease, insects and fire. Oaks are good, and other hardwoods too.
We have alligator junipers here. Millions of them in SW New Mexico. The biggest live one I've seen is six feet in diameter and over sixty feet tall - the experts say it might be a thousand years old. I've run across hundreds of big stumps in the hills that measure 2-3 feet in diameter and were cut down by miners or the cavalry 150 years ago. Those stumps are solid as a rock in the ground with only a small amount of pitting formed in the saw marks on the top surface. They look like they'll last hundreds more years without much or any degradation. They're bullet-proof. A Ponderosa pine stump will rot completely away in ten years. Pinons are not much better.
In addition to a chiseled carving on an unmovable rock surface, a cut juniper stump is an excellent permanent sign in the forest. At least three stumps in a straight line is a terrific directional pointer. Same goes for a series of cut trees that form a pattern. A big fire will burn a dead standing juniper, but the main trunk or stump will rarely if ever be consumed. Axe blazes on junipers are a good bet too.