Take it from us: Christmas is better with a Christmas tree.
(Even Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz weighed in on this last year.)
Please don’t take your tree from us, however. You’ll have to get one from somewhere besides a state forest, just like we do.
Because the trust lands under our supervision are needed to generate sustainable revenue while managed in an environmentally conscious way, we can’t have people cutting down our juvenile trees before they reach maturity. If we did, then there would be less money generated for schools, libraries, and other public services for the agencies that depend on us.
Instead, to generate solid returns for those public services, we have to wait until the trees in the forest have reached maturity before auctioning them for harvest.
However, there are plenty of places on federal lands for Washington residents to be able to cut their own Christmas trees, and there’s also many tree farms open for residents shopping across the state.
National Forests
- Colville National Forest
- Gifford Pinchot National Forest
- Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
- Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
- Olympic National Forest
Private tree farms
Here’s to hoping for a safe harvest, and a happy holiday season, too!
