Forest fresh: Cal Forestry Club’s tree sale starts Sunday

In December 1956, a Christmas tree at least 40 feet tall decorated UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. That year, and annually for a time, the Cal Forestry Club would locate, cut down and sell to the ASUC the campus’s official holiday tree — a fragrant, towering delivery on a truck bed.

The club also harvested about 100 small trees from the property of generous alumni. It gifted half to offices, libraries and prominent individuals on campus and sold the rest, according to a history of Berkeley’s forestry education, which began in 1914.

As more winter holidays took their rightful spot on the calendar, the club ended those traditions. But it began another: a multi-day sale on campus of Christmas trees it clears from Sierra Nevada forests. This year’s event starts Sunday, Dec. 8, at 8 a.m.

The so-called Christmas Tree Cut project is a fundraiser, but it also supports a healthy forest. Students carpool to the mountains and, hiking into stands of tall trees, hand-cut several hundred small white firs and incense cedars that are considered undergrowth and potential fuel for wildfires.

The trees aren’t cone-shaped, but there’s never a shortage of customers.

“These are wild, open-grown trees. No one’s pruned or shaped them,” said the club’s adviser, Rachelle Hedges, a project and policy analyst for Berkeley Forests, part of the Rausser College of Natural Resources. “They have that Christmas tree look, but are more sparse. Some people say they’re like a Charlie Brown tree, but they’re beautiful. You can see all your ornaments so well.

“And they last a lot longer than those that come from typical tree lots and are cut weeks before you buy them. These are cut literally a day before they’re sold.”  

A day of hard work, a day of fast sales

Today, about 25 club members are caravaning to Blodgett Forest, a campus research forest in El Dorado County. They’ll spend the night there, then on Saturday fill a 26-foot truck with the trees they fell, with permission, on Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) land.

“This year, we’re going to one of SPI’s fuel breaks and clearing the younger growth to maintain the effectiveness of that break,” said Garrett Hesser, a third-year forestry major who is chair of the club’s Christmas Tree Cut Committee.

While the club usually sells trees that range from 2 to 3 feet tall up to 10 to 12 feet, those it will cut this weekend likely will range in height from 4 to 7 feet, he said, “since they’re in a fuel break that’s been managed in the past.”

Late Saturday, the group will drive back to Berkeley. On Sunday, they’ll offer the trees to the public at $11 a foot.

The sale is held outside Mulford Hall. Sunday’s hours will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The sale is scheduled to continue Monday through Wednesday, Dec. 9-11, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

But beware: The past two years, all the trees were sold the first day.

Last year, “I think we sold, like, almost 250 trees in six hours. It’s certainly become a thing where people start lining up” well before 8 a.m. on opening day, said Hesser.

As a result, Hedges said, this year the students are planning to “dramatically” increase the number of trees they cut, completely filling their rental truck.

A crowd will be waiting and contain familiar faces. About 80% of the customers have bought trees at the sale for many years, she said. And they’re well-aware that the trees won’t have that traditional look.

“People new to the sale sometimes are surprised by the way the trees look,” said Hedges, “but they’re pleased to hear they’re from the forest, and that the club supports its health, and fuel reduction.”

The 112-year-old club’s biggest fundraiser

For students in the club, founded in 1912, the annual Christmas tree effort is “one of the highlights of our year,” said Hesser. Normally, they encounter snow in the Sierra Nevada — a new and magical sight for some students — and “we get to stay in cabins at Blodgett,” he said. “We take up food and drinks and have a great experience.”

Blodgett, in Georgetown, California, is at an elevation of 3,900 to 4,800 feet, has four fish-bearing streams, 400 species of plants and habitat for 150 species of animals.

“The smell of the trees is amazing,” Hesser added. “No tree lot tree has that fresh mountain pine or fir smell.”

The money raised by the historic club, which has about 60 active members, is used to send students to forestry conferences across the country. It also pays for courses to certify them to use chain and crosscut saws or license them as timber operators.

And it funds the club’s Yule Ball, to be held this year on Saturday, Dec. 14.

With their rugged work in the woods complete, said Hesser, “everyone gets dressed up.”