Loomis Natural Resources Conservation Area Hiking Trails

The Loomis Natural Resources Conservation Area consists of a north block and a south block totaling 24,672 acres. The mountainous landscape ranges from 4,400 to more than 7,800 feet in elevation, including two mountain peaks in the north block—Disappointment Peak (7,146 feet) and Snowshoe Mountain (7,823 feet). Its location in the eastern side of the Cascade Mountain Range results in a relatively dry climate, with cold snowy winters and hot dry summers with frequent lightning storms.

The area is a high-elevation connection between the Cascades, the Okanogan Highlands and the Rocky Mountains; thus, it has a distinctive mixture of vegetation, including mountains draped with vast forests of lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, and subalpine fir, interspersed with large openings of mountain sagebrush parklands and subalpine meadows. The lodgepole pine forests are a key habitat for Canada lynx, which inhabit them throughout the year, feeding primarily on snowshoe hare. Quaking aspen stands also are scattered across the landscape, offering important habitat for moose, elk, and deer as well as a variety of birds. At the highest elevations, the trees become increasingly sparse, finally yielding to the grasses and wildflowers of alpine meadows.

Other tree species, such as whitebark pine, also become more common as the ‘treeline’ is approached. Whitebark Pine is an important food resource for a number of wildlife species that eat the seeds, including several bird species and both black and grizzly bears. This tree species was recently designated a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act due to range-wide declines attributed to a combination of altered fire regimes, climate change, disease and insects.

Fire is a natural, recurring component of the ecology at Loomis NRCA. Past stand replacement fires in and around the NRCA occurred close enough together to create large areas of relatively even-aged lodgepole pine forest. In 2006, a large lightning-ignited wildfire, known as the “Tripod Complex” burned nearly 175,000 acres in the region, including more than 5,000 acres of the south block of Loomis NRCA.

Other habitats within the NRCA include extensive areas of rock and talus, streams and riparian corridors, and wetland meadows. Among the 11 plant species of conservation concern are several that primarily are found in more northerly, boreal ecosystems or to the east in the Rocky Mountains.