My greatest fear of a wildland fire is losing my forest.
I have spent enough time above timberline to know the experience
of returning to the comforts of the forest below.
I will never lose that bonding with the forest.
I’ve counted the rings on my largest trees
and they are 100 years old.
Losing our house would be a terrible inconvenience.
But that would likely be over in a few years.
After the fire, the views of Mt. Evans will still be there.
After the fire, the creek and ponds will still be there.
After the fire, the meadow will quickly recover.
It would take a century for all of my trees to grow back.
That loss would be unbearable.
Previous Articles
Walk Away Quietly…
"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, nature's peace will flow into...
The Promise
Living with Holly through the passing of her mother has been quite an experience. I now realize how easy I had it when my mother passed away several years ago. When the time came, one of my sisters moved in with mom as a full-time caregiver. Another sister took over...
Wash Your Spirit Clean!
Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. — John Muir
Shorts and Sandals
After reading about the multitude of fires in Canada and how dry their forests are, I was about to write a column on how fortunate we are to have received so much rain this year and how much I love the rain. When I mentioned it to Holly, her immediate response was,...
Body of Knowledge
The tiger salamander was declared the Colorado State Amphibian in March 2012, after a sustained campaign initiated by the John Babiak family of Denver. It turns out that the tiger salamander is also the state amphibian of Kansas and Illinois. The tiger salamander is...
Glen Gerlach
As many of you might already know, longtime Evergreen resident, Glen Gerlach, passed away in his home in the Greenwood area on April 3rd. It’s possible that I have known Glen longer than any of his friends here in town because we worked together for a decade in...
Solitude
My pondering this month has a lot to do with having a long attention span... or not. So, if you have a very short attention span and relish that behavior you can stop reading right now and move on to your next curiosity. I have always had a very long attention span to...
Small-Town Living
There are a lot of things about our mountain community to be upset about, especially if you are recently from California. However, the one characteristic of our community that we all might agree upon is that it really does feel like a small town. I have said, since I...
