Could college lumberjacks help fight Colorado's mountain pine beetle outbreak?
“You guys just have to power through, get those reps,” Senior Jack Gilmore said, encouraging them to keep going. “Come on! Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig!”
They push the saw a few more times before stopping to take a breather.
“Like most of the sport, it's easier than it looks,” Gilmore said sarcastically, laughing.
This is just one of around 20 different events in logging sports. The events range from the less dangerous tasks, like identifying trees and dating tree rings, to the more dangerous ones. Take Obstacle Pole, an event Gilmore competes in at tournaments. It involves running up a log in the air and cutting it with a chainsaw.
“My mom is like, ‘You're doing what…with chainsaws and sharp toys?!’ Gilmore recalled. “‘You have to run up a log, and then, while balancing, you have to then turn on the chainsaw and try not to cut your foot off?!’”
The events pay tribute to old logging practices. It started in Australia around 150 years ago, where friendly competitions took place between co-workers to see who could cut a log the fastest.
Today, logging sports — also known as timber sports — is growing in popularity at U.S. colleges and universities. CSU competes in a conference of around 15 other schools. Their last competition at California Polytechnic State University had 175 competitors.
From games to real world applications
But some events — like pole climbing and chainsaw cutting — directly transfer to skills needed for forestry jobs. That’s all the more crucial as Colorado looks for workers to help fight a massive pine beetle outbreak. The insects kill a tree’s vital systems.
This isn’t the first time these insects have infested Colorado’s trees. Back in the early 2000s, Mountain Pine Beetles knocked out more than three million acres of public lands and national forests in the state. The hollow trunks leave behind a more dead, barren landscape, creating easy fuel for wildfires.
CSU senior and logging team president Troy Ferguson saw this firsthand growing up in Conifer and learning from his dad, who is an arborist.
“We had a lot of dying trees in our yard, and it was a constant kind of die off from beetle kill,” Ferguson said. “It was kind of slow and steady at first, and now it's kind of picked up a little bit in recent years.”
Mountain Pine Beetles are usually a helpful species for the natural renewal of a forest ecosystem. But when the weather produces warm winters and drought — like what Colorado is experiencing — these beetles can be detrimental.
The beetles are now feeding on trees along the Front Range — near more neighborhoods, water sources and recreational areas. Ferguson sees the impact all over.
“It's hard to put into words how many trees are dying,” he said. “You go anywhere on I-70, you go anywhere in Conifer, there's beetle kill everywhere.”
Federal and state forest officials conduct aerial surveys every year to look at the health of the forests. In 2025, they noticed the uptick in beetles along the Front Range. The discovery prompted Gov. Jared Polis to issue an executive order last December, creating a task force made up of dozens of forestry, fire and natural resource officials.
“This is one of those wicked problems,” Alison Lerch, Assistant Director for forest health and wildfire mitigation for the Department of Natural Resources, said. “This is not something that we are here together as a task force to stop, but we are here to adapt.”
The Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force has had two meetings so far. They have to create an action plan with recommendations before Polis’ June 30 deadline. The task force’s next meeting is on April 28.
But local and state officials aren’t just sitting on their hands during this time. They’ve already started to spray campgrounds and offer tree inspections to homeowners. Some counties, like Jefferson County, are even providing reimbursement for treatment.
“The State Forest Service has, you know, regional offices with foresters, I know their phones are ringing off the hook,” she said. “They don't want to just sit back and wait to create some recommendations. They say the time is now. And so that is the type of working group that I am excited to be a part of.”
The next wave of foresters
There’s a lot of work to be done, but none of it can happen without the people to do it. Colorado works with other forestry agencies, but across the board, there are not enough arborists to cut and treat damaged or dead trees. Not to mention, federal forestry jobs have been cut.
Lerch says the task force needs more workers to support the 800,000 acres of ponderosa pine forests affected in a nine-country area along the Front Range.
“Those recommendations have to honor the capacity needs of our state,” she said. “There are so many people out there on the ground right now, but we know we also need more.”
The industry is also aging. According to state data, these tree specialists are around 40 years old.
But there are younger people who are interested in helping solve Colorado’s beetle problem — like Ferguson. He dreams of starting his own business, partially focused on removing dead trees.
“I want to teach as many people what I know as I can, teach them what's proper, teach them what's not and really get that to set into their minds the importance of what we're doing,” Ferguson said.
The CSU logging sports club is helping him prepare.
“There's been jokes that we're kind of a manual labor club,” Ferguson said. “But anyone that's doing any of the chopping events is also getting really good experience in using hand tools.”
The team’s upcoming competition will sharpen his forestry skills. It’s this weekend in Missoula, Montana.
This story is part of a collaboration with KUNC.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
