Neihart, MT – Now that its winter season has concluded, workers at Montana’s Showdown Ski Area are thinning the mountain’s forest of dead and diseased trees lining its lifts and trails.

Most of the suspect trees have succumbed to the pine beetle infestation that has ravaged much of the western U.S., and 25 fell throughout the course of the winter. Fortunately none fell on guests or ski lifts.

Crews are cutting down the dead or dying trees within 150 feet of ski trails and hooking them to snowcats to transport them to the base, a process enabled by the six feet or more of snow that still remains on the hill.

It’s estimated that pine beetles have infected roughly 524,000 acres of the 1.7 million-acre Lewis and Clark National Forest in north-central Montana, within which Showdown operates. It’s estimated that the ski area will remove approximately 800 trees this year during the first phase of the project, which was approved last year by the U.S. Forest Service.