Restoration job: Crews planting native vegetation at Bass Creek Recreation Area

STEVENSVILLE With a pouch filled with aspen, snowberry and Woods rose, Abe Fielding is doing his part to turn black to green.

Every few steps inside the charred circle where a pile of slash burned last year, Fielding stops to swing the hoe-like tool above his head and slam it into the moist earth.

A few seconds later, his hand slips into his pouch for the next seedling to plant. Following a well-practiced stoop, the plants long roots slide into the fresh hole cut in the ground.

His foot packs the earth around the plant as he moves on to the next planting.

In two days, Fielding and others from Hamiltons Watershed Restoration Group and Missoulas Miller Creek Reforestation planted 4,000 seedlings and spread native grass seeds over the last disturbed areas on the Bitterroot National Forests Bass Creek Recreation Area.

Their work marks the end of a project that thinned 765 acres of the forests second most popular recreation area last year.

Last winters ample snow and the summers rain provided enough moisture to kick-start the native bunch grass, shrubs and aspen this summer on most of the acreage that was thinned.

But the places where slash piles were burned and logs skidded needed some extra help to recover.

Bitterroot Forest botanist Robin Taylor-Davenport said crews walked over the project area last year and noted places that needed seeding and some other plant life.

Before the project started, the botanist and others collected cuttings and seeds from native plants on the site. Those were used to grow seedlings at the Bitterroots Great Bear Restoration greenhouses.

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Restoration job: Crews planting native vegetation at Bass Creek Recreation Area