Contact Us.  Web site contents copyrighted.  All rights reserved. Made With Serif WebPlus.  Home

Old Growth Western Juniper

Devil’s Garden Natural Area, Modoc National Forest

The Devil’s Garden Natural Area on the Modoc National Forest is located about six miles due west of Goose Lake in northeast California. Actual mileage from the small community of Davis Creek, located on US395, is about 26 miles and requires four wheel drive.


The Natural Area was created around 1935 and consists of about 800 acres. It is one of the few places on the Modoc National Forest where wood cutting is actually prohibited. Because of its remote location, the Natural Area, at least the eastern part, shows no recent wood cutting activity. This old growth juniper woodland contains some of the oldest appearing western juniper we have seen in northeast California. Some trees exhibit bark that appears to be up to three inches thick. The high number of dead standing snags, dead wood retained aloft, fallen snags and dead wood on the ground in this area indicate a very old western juniper woodland.


Unfortunately, the Natural Area is not fenced and is used extensively by large numbers of feral horses and permitted cattle. The old junipers here have an upright growth habit allowing the cows and feral horses to use them as thermal cover. Because of this, the native vegetation around and underneath many old growth juniper trees has been eliminated. We found only one example of Cusick’s stickseed. A couple of fires within the last 10 to 20 years have destroyed quite a few old growth juniper in the northeast and east central portions of the Devil’s Garden Natural Area.

Trunk bark on this old juniper is close to three inches thick.

The measuring stick has six inch increments.

This is a series of images of individual trees from the eastern part of the Devil’s Garden Natural Area on the MNF. They were taken during the first week of September 2012.

These are images taken of groups of old western juniper within the Devil’s Garden Natural Area on the MNF. The images were taken during the first week of September 2012.