ABOUT US

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Alpenglow Timber is an innovative, modest-scale wood products facility that will utilize small diameter logs from fire prevention and forest health projects. Founder and Operator David Mercer is a lifelong Olympic Valley resident, active community member and progressive timber operator with 30+ years in forest restoration and timber work in the region. 

Mercer conceived Alpenglow Timber in 2021 to provide a long-term solution to the region’s lack of wood infrastructure. Alpenglow Timber has completed facility pre-development, secured some of the needed financial support from state and federal resource agencies, begun to procure equipment, and anticipates completing the plant’s design and engineering and project permitting in Spring 2025. Construction is expected to begin in Spring 2025, with the onset of operations planned for Fall 2025.

Over the course of the project, we have maintained an earnest and transparent relationship with all entities involved, including neighboring businesses and land owners. Since 2021, we have reached out to gather neighbor input and address their concerns. We recognize the neighborhood’s rural character, empathize with the property owners' concerns, and have strived to address them and come to meaningful compromises. The impacts of Alpenglow Timber to the surrounding neighborhood are minor and mitigated, particularly relative to the risk of wildfire and wildfire-induced impacts to Truckee and the broader region. Full details on the project and the required mitigation measures in reducing the impacts from the project to less-than-significant levels and can be found in the CEQA report, here: Alpenglow-Notice-of-Availability-and-CEQA-Initial-Study-PLN23-0054-CUP23-0004-EIS24-0004-PDF (nevadacountyca.gov) 

To adequately reduce wildfire risk and protect forested communities, new local wood processing infrastructure must be established for the long term. Ideally, this infrastructure is developed by local small business owners and residents who are invested in the community’s well-being, such as David Mercer.    

Located on 18 acres of a 124-acre parcel approximately five miles north of the Town of Truckee, off Klondike Flat Road and across Highway 89 from Hobart Mills, the parcel and surrounding area is zoned FR-640-SC (Forest – 640-acre minimum parcel size – Scenic Corridor) by Nevada County as outlined in its general plan. This zoning district is intended to “provide areas for the protection, production and management of timber and timber support uses” according to the purpose and intent of this zoning district. The “Forest” zoning district allows for uses such as lumber mills, woodyards, timber harvesting and other agricultural-based uses consistent with the proposed Alpenglow Timber project. 

Partial funding for this project is provided by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Business and Workforce Development Grant and U.S. Forest Service Wood Innovation and Community Wood Energy Grant.

The facility will use local timber of all sizes, made available from regional forest health projects, to manufacture kiln-dried and rough-sawn lumber, firewood and eventually other timber products. This will alleviate the demand of regional forest managers for a new outlet for lumber and help mitigate additional fuels in our forests. Lumber products produced will be made available on the open market and can be used for construction, pallet and dunnage, agricultural applications, among other things. Additionally, we will supply firewood for the North Tahoe and Truckee area. Sawdust and wood chips from the facility will be used onsite to produce heat to warm the sawmill buildings and on-site employee housing consisting of three duplexes, eliminating reliance on propane with an enclosed, small-scale biomass boiler.

Mercer has owned and operated a local vegetation management company, Cross Check Services, for more than 20 years. It has developed a reputation as one of the most conscientious forest operators in the region with a distinct focus on healthy forests and minimal impacts through adequate and thoughtful fuels reduction treatments.

The company uses low-impact equipment, typically thinning trees 6-20 inches in diameter. As part of these projects, Cross Check Services often chips the limbs and tops of the trees and spreads woody residues back on to a project site, decreasing potential soil erosion, increasing soil moisture, and creating conditions suitable to carry prescribed fire, and making for a healthier forest. Cross Check Services’ forestry projects improve the health and safety of local forests and communities.

Through its decades work with local agencies including and not limited to: Truckee Donner Land Trust, Truckee Fire Protection District, US Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest, California State Parks, Bureau of and North Tahoe Fire, Mercer realized there had become a frightful gap in the regional economy that was limiting the agencies’ ability to reduce fuels in our forests: all of the sawmills were closing. The nearest wood processing facilities are located in Carson City and Quincy which are more than 60 and 80 miles away, respectively, making it financially infeasible based on the prices facilities are willing to pay for logs.

In 2022, Cross Check Services was forced to halt work on the North Alder Project because there was no available end-user for the logs resulting in an estimated 1,000 acres of forestland left untreated in the vicinity of the Klondike Flat neighborhood. There have been multiple other occasions when the company has been unable to simply even bid on forest thinning projects because there is not an economically feasible end-user for the logs that would be generated.