Mount Adams Community Forest

The Mount Adams Community Forest was founded by the Mount Adams Resource Stewards in 2011, making it Washington’s first non-profit owned community forest. It strives to protect forest land for sustainable harvest, wildlife habitat, and public access.

Some of the community benefits that this property provides include:

  1. Various recreational opportunities, especially at the Mill Pond tract, which features a hiking trail, camping, and non-motorized boating opportunities.

  2. Increased wildfire resilience and forest health through a fuels reduction and prescribed fire program implemented by MARS and their partners.

  3. Sustainable income to maintain the property through timber harvest, which also supports the local timber economy and provides jobs.

Smoke from a ground fire rises in an open pine stand. A person in firefighting gear stands to one side, holding a drip torch.

Mount Adams Resource Stewards have successfully reintroduced intentional fire to the community forest.

Photo provided by Sustainable Northwest

Additional Property Facts:

  1. The Mount Adams Community forest is made up of four non-adjacent tracts: Mill Pond, Pine Flats, Klickitat Rim, and South Conboy. Properties have been acquired over time as resources are available; the community forest is currently over 1,800 acres and plans to continue expanding.

  2. A 2023 survey estimated that there are a total of 2,306,411 trees on the Mount Adams Community Forest... not counting the newest 800-acre tract!

  3. One goal of the Mount Adams Community Forest is to maintain a place for traditional activities including fishing, hunting, firewood gathering, and mushroom harvest.

The Mount Adams Community Forest demonstrates a successful model of community-informed ecological forest stewardship. Learn more by reading the full fact-sheet below.

Three people dressed in wildland firefighting gear stand in a forested setting next to several drip torches and hand tools.

Right: Prescribed fire practitioners gather for briefing before a burn on the Mount Adams Community Forest

A man stands next to a red truck, shooting a stream of water out of a backpack fire pump.

Left: Department of Natural Resources staff demonstrate prescribed fire tools at an educational event on the Mount Adams Community Forest

Photos: Sustainable Northwest

This document is supported in part by financial assistance from the Forest Service. This institution is an equal opportunity provider.