Bret Harte Forestry Club’s top team, comprised of seniors Pablo Carrillo-Wright, Cheyenne Stephens, and Brayden Bowersox, finished first competing against 32 teams in the 2025 El Dorado Forestry Challenge in Grizzley Flats this past weekend. They punched their ticket to the Forestry Challenge Championships scheduled for April in Pinecrest.
“Our winning team [scored] well above the other 12 extremely competitive teams that made the required 200 points to attend the Forestry Championship,” shared advisor Mr. Castro.
To learn more about the Forestry Challenge, visit https://forestrychallenge.org, or email Mr. Castro at mcastro@bhuhsd.net. Photo courtesy of Mr. Castro.
The following is a detailed summary of this past weekend’s El Dorado Forestry Challenge, courtesy of Mr. Castro.
“The forestry challenge is a four day, three night event where students compete against 16 other schools containing 32 teams; they compete in forestry skills, knowledge, and resource management planning. There are two main events that students are scored on, a practical exam and a forest management presentation. The practical exam is 16 sites. At each site students complete a specific challenge, either through use of a forestry tool (clinometer, densitometer, Biltmore stick, compass) to analyze a specific tree for amount of lumber, value, or age. Some other examples of site challenges could be to interpret a forest map or use a dichotomous key to identify a plant species.
The second portion of the competition is a presentation that is given to and judged by a panel of professional foresters. On the first full day of the challenge students learn the skills to collect data on a plot of land in a forest. The second half of the day we go out to a forest site to collect data. The directors compile every team’s data that was collected into a graph of the evidence. That same night the students have one of two 3-hour sessions to design, create and practice their presentations. The presentation is based on a focus topic about the specific site situation. Every year is different and this year’s focus topic for data collection was the fuel break establishment after the Caldor fire. With this unique data set of information each team created a plan of action on how to manage the site within the forest to become an effective and profitable shaded fuel break, while following all national forest management laws and regulations…”