Elevation & Climate

Information below was borrowed from the 2011 Forest Stewarship Plan prepared by Colorado Forest Management LLC.

ELEVATION

The elevation of the West Ranch Association property varies between 6880 and 7955 feet.

TOPOGRAPHY 

The property is located in the foothills of the Front Range of Colorado southwest of the Denver Metro Area.  The property has mostly north and east facing slopes, although most of the oak areas have more southerly aspects.  A good portion of the area is also found on level ridge lines with no aspect.  This property has some rock outcrops and steep slopes which makes work in many areas very difficult.  Much of the property has 'minimal operability' issues.  Minimal operability is defined as an area where it would be difficult to use equipment due to access, rock outcrops or slope.  Light manual forest management activities can be completed by hand, but are extremely difficult.  The minimally operable areas have slopes of 35% or greater.  The remainder or 'operable' acres have slopes ranging from 0 to 35% with an average of 30%, or work can be anchored from existing roads.  Slope issues are minimized by having access roads where work can be anchored.

CLIMATE

No specific climate data is available for this property. The closest available meteorological data is for Evergreen, CO and the station in Inter Canyon, CO (figure 2).  The Evergreen station is located 7 miles to the northwest at an elevation of 7000 feet, while the Inter Canyon station is .75 miles to the west at 7040 feet.  The weather on the property is expected to be close to the Inter Canyon station, however insufficient data for temperature is collected at this station and the data at Evergreen should be comparable.

                                                                    Inter Canyon                            Evergreen

Average Max Temperature                                      N/A                                       60.7

Average Min Temperature                                       N/A                                       27.2

Average Annual Precipitation (in)                            22.41                                    18.71

Average Total Snowfall (in)                                   139.5                                      84.9

Average Snow Depth (in)                                         3.0                                        1.0

Figure 2: Data from the nearest meteorological stations to the West Ranch property. (Source: Western Regional Climate Center, 2011)