This blackened Douglas-fir stump is all that remains of the old growth forest that once grew on this land. Try to imagine this tree alive: rising like a pillar of the Parthenon up to a canopy three times the height of the trees that you can see now. Now imagine six of these giants and distribute them around you, up to five car-lengths away in every direction. This picture in your head is a glimpse of what the primordial forest looked like. We can be pretty sure that there were at least six of these giants growing this far apart because we have noted on maps where we find stumps like this one.

This "stump mapping" gives us an idea of how close the trees grew in the old growth stands before it was logged. We use this mapping for guidelines as to what type of densities we should be targeting as we carefully thin this plantation stand. As you look at the forest today, remember that the trees in the primordial forest lived to be at least 750 years old (as evidenced by the size of their stumps), so today you are walking among infants.