The first objective of our study is to understand the successional patterns in a whitebark pine forest following a mountain pine beetle outbreak. This research is being conducted in the Pioneer Mountains of Montana, however, mountain pine beetle outbreaks are presently occurring on relatively large scales throughout high elevation forests of the Northern Rocky Mountains. Consequently, this builds on the relatively little amount of information regarding the long-term impacts beetle disturbance plays in whitebark pine forest dynamics. Secondly, this study involves a group from the University of Utah who extracted lake sediment cores with the goal to reconstruct a long-term record of mountain pine beetle activity in the region. This objective is to understand what role climate, and climate change, may have on mountain pine beetle outbreaks and subsequent forest structure.