Hikers on Kesugi Ridge observe a large abundance of Rusty Tussock Caterpillars all over cairns marking the trail from Coal Creek to Byre's Lake. They swarmed on the hiker's bodies and packs and from a distance covered structures to the point where they looked black.
"My family and I have been RV camping across Alaska for the last several years. This year, the mass amounts of dead spruce trees have been more apparent than any year prior."
Dead, red trees signal an increasingly dire outbreak driven by warm summers and plentiful spruce, especially in the Susitna Valley.
Beetles that killed millions of acres of trees in the 1990s were a first sign of climate change. In a new flare-up, they continue marching north as Alaska warms.
The aggressive infestation that took hold in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough north of Anchorage in 2016 has now spread north, covering hillsides in the communities outside the park with rustred dead trees and reaching into park boundaries.
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