Sprucing things up
Rick Trembath walks down a road looking for trees to be used in the holiday decorating of downtown Bigfork.
Hugh Corn pulls trees from his truck. More than 600 trees were collected to decorate downtown Bigfork this year.
Nick Pieri tosses a tree onto a pile while waiting for a truck to pick up the harvest.
More than 100 “elves” received breakfast at the Flathead Lake Lodge before splitting into two groups. One group stayed at the lodge to assemble Christmas light bulbs and the other headed outdoors to cut down trees.
Nick Pieri hands a cut tree to his wife, Laura.
More than 100 volunteers, otherwise known as Bigfork Elves, gathered at Flathead Lake Lodge on a chilly Saturday morning two weeks before Thanksgiving to begin the process of decorating downtown Bigfork for the holiday season. About half of the group stayed behind to test and replace Christmas light bulbs while the remainder headed onto 20 different properties to thin out forest areas while gathering as many as 800 trees.