Fallen forests salvaged: woodworkers' enterprise rises out of beetle-kill devastation.

• Author: Patterson, Amelia

A few miles east of Evergreen, up a winding, narrow canyon cloaked in million-dollar mansions and under the shadow of Mount Evans, a tiny cabin is nestled into the side of a hill. The lot is scarcely bigger than the timber-frame cabin, and nearly every square foot is taken up by wood and ornate carvings.

Here Dennie Ibbotson has lived for 30 years carving majestic elk and other wildlife into lodgepole pine and ponderosa.

Ibbotson has the lethal mountain pine beetle to thank for his masterpieces. It is the brushes of blue, woven into the wood, that create a unique canvas for Ibbotson and give life and color to his carvings. The blue stain is the work and mark of the mountain pine beetle, or Dendroctonus ponderosae, which is ravaging pine forests across the West.

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With a mallet and a chisel, Ibbotson hand-carves every piece. He builds and carves large custom doors for log and timber-frame homes. Some of his doors take hundreds of hours to complete, and they can sell for up to $18,000 in resort towns like Telluride and Jackson, Wyo. Intricate mantles and headboards are also a specialty, featuring North American wildlife from timber wolves in aspen groves to bugling elk, Canada geese and bald eagles.

"I like to use wood when it is natural, especially out of the beetle kill wood; to let the wood talk," Ibbotson said. He also uses oil paints and stained glass to illustrate his woodwork, if the wood is not as colorful.

The mountain pine beetle has devastated vast stands of lodgepole pine in the central Rockies from Steamboat in the north to Breckenridge to the south. The browning of Colorado's forests is also creating a unique wood product from the salvaged trees. A small niche of specialized artisans, carpenters and woodworkers are creating elaborate doors, rustic furniture and cabinets out of the graveyard of trees in Colorado's mountains.

The wood is accented with a blue hue from a fungus the beetle carries to the trees it infests. This blue stain is aesthetic in nature and does not interfere with the integrity and strength of the wood. While the blue wood is considered by some to be an ornamental wood, you won't find it at your local lumberyard.

Lodgepole pine is the principal victim of the mountain pine beetle, but it has also infested ponderosa stands as well. Recent droughts have weakened Colorado's forests, and other types of bark beetles are spreading, too, including the spruce beetle, the white pine beetle and the...