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Bark Beatles take their toll on Grand County. This is what I had to look at while hunting this year. I felt pretty sick over it. But what can we do it's a natural occurance and the enviromentalist thing logging is bad. Yeah Right!!!! http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...d/DCP_2389.jpg http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...P_2391.jpg</a>
I think about this every time we camp. All it's going to take is one lightning strike or cigarret butt to turn the high country into a giant fire. The pine beetle is natural, but the Forest Service missed the opportunity to do something about it when it first started manifesting itself. I read somewhere that the estimate is something like 98% of the pine trees are dead in Summit Country and the Vail Valley. We used to camp a lot at Heaton Bay and Prospector around Lake Dillon. Now Heaton Bay is almost desert-like since the Forest Service cut down all the trees and Prospector is next.
That saddens me
The beetles primarily attack weakened trees. The tree-huggers think trees will live forever if you let them. Selective thinning of infested trees isn't the answer, either. The impact by man to the soil and root systems of the surrounding trees weakens them, too. Thinning a forest while it's still healthy can be of some help. There wasn't a damn thing the USDA, including the Forest Service, could do about it, either. The forests are being regulated by politicians, not scientists.
If the trees don't burn and regenerate, they will die then burn and regenerate...if the soil isn't damaged too badly from the firestorm created by not allowing smaller and more frequent burns. Fire is part of the conifer's lifecycle. Some people need to buy a clue.
Yeah, the forest is ripe for one gigantic fire now. Think Yellowstone.