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
The Blizzard of March 2003
About this time every year, Dougbook sends me this memory of being snowed in at my cabin in Beaverbrook Canyon. The storm snowed for 3 days straight, leaving up to 7 feet of heavy spring snow. It took the county road grader 5 days to reach my cabin. That turned out to...
The White Weasels of Winter
One of the really cool things about my morning solo walks in the woods is that, given enough time, I will eventually observe forest life that no one else sees or even knows about. So, a few days ago, I bundled up and headed out when the temperature was hovering around...
Flooded With Thoughts
I don’t know what I expected for January, but what I got was a flood of thoughts across the emotional spectrum of joy and sadness. One cannot help but share an immense sorrow for the California families who, in a matter of hours, lost everything. I can’t stop...
Enjoy The Holiday Season
Giving Thanks
This year, I want to give particular thanks to having my wonderful wife, Holly, in my life for the last 15 years. She is absolutely the most amazing woman I have ever known. She is always there for her daughter, Carina, and me no matter how badly the wheels are...
Make It Simple
Long ago, I recognized a pattern in my design efforts. It takes me many creations of workable solutions before arriving at what I consider an elegantly simple design. Most often, looking back at my first design, I can be harshly critical, as in: How could you be so...
Mountain Pine Beetle
At the risk of being called “Captain Obvious,” I want to draw attention to the comeback being staged by the Mountain Pine Beetle in our “Evergreen” forests. I say comeback because there was a major infestation in the late 1990s. That’s when Summit County was hit so...
Fly and Grace
Wow. As I sit here writing, I just noticed that it’s raining again—one of those delicious, soaking showers. It must be almost a week now that the Global Warming Gods have taken pity on us! Now, let me share with you two of my favorite verses from John Denver’s “Rocky...
