Checking to see if anyone has info about the health of the trees around the campsites on the SW end of Seagull or in Alpine after the fires that recently went through that area a few years ago. We will have a party of four who all plan to hang, and want to make sure there will be places to do so on those lakes as we past through. Thanks!

Unfortunately you are going to be severely challenged finding enough quality trees left at a particular site to allow four people to hang. the NE end of Seagull wasn't impacted by the fire so that's where I would focus, but that whole area suffered greatly and finding enough stout trees spaced correctly to allow four people to hang is going to be hard to find anywhere in the BWCAW. I've got a similar situation where our group will have four hangers, and we plan on bringing a tent and two air mattresses in case one or two people need to go to ground for the night.

We had 2 hangers in our group, and we were able to find trees to hang on the east side of Alpine at campsites 350 (not great) and 346 (5-star). If you have any more than that, it might be challenging especially on some of the smaller sites on Alpine. We noticed that most of the campsites we saw seemed to still have mature trees around them -- we wondered if perhaps the Forestry Service focused on preserving them while they were fighting the fires. Jasper is a different story.

Thanks for the info SummerSkin. So it sounds like trees are still good on Alpine? When were you last there? Heard bears have been active on Alpine and surrounding lakes this year. Any issues finding good bear hang trees?

bmoore: "Thanks for the info SummerSkin. So it sounds like trees are still good on Alpine? When were you last there? Heard bears have been active on Alpine and surrounding lakes this year. Any issues finding good bear hang trees?"

We were there less than a month ago. We didn't check all campsites, but several that we passed on the east side of Alpine seemed to have at least enough trees for two or more hangs. Yes, prior to us arriving there were bear issues on Alpine. We were told that a bear visited campsite 345 next to ours while we were there. That said, we hung our bags at both sites, and although the hang at 350 was very iffy, we didn't see or hear anything as far as bears.

I will say campsites were very much in demand on Alpine. It was extremely crowded while we were there.