Hiking the charred remains

“Went hiking to Mt Islip this weekend and was thoroughly depressed by the pure devastation of the Curve Fire of Sept 2002 (just a hair under 21k acres toasted). The hike began with chaparral and moved into a beautiful forest of Jeffrey, Bigcone, Spruce and Coulters. Just short of the Little Jimmy campground we came upon an area of felled (by logging in the early 1900s) trees with no sapling greater than about 8 feet tall. At this same point we came to the edge of the burn area. Massive trees with burnt stumps and unburnt but dead crowns. The smells changed from pine forest to BBQ pit charcoal. As we approached Windy Gap, more of the same - burnt forest and ashes. The SW faces of Mt Hawkins and South Mt Hawkins were burnt to a crisp, with nothing but skeletal remains of trees that were probably hundreds of years old. Just below the summit of Islip is a stone, 1 room house with masonry inside and a slap foundation and no roof. Suspect this was the quarters of the person on fire watch when there was a lookout on top (foundations were still evident). Overall, a nice, easy hike with rewarding views.”

“It's amazing how long that charred smell remains in a burn area.”

“what kills me is that these people who started the fire have never been caught (to my knowledge). It cost $13.3 million to contain it and an indeterminant amount due to the forest destruction. It's not like the Angeles National Forest is that big. This was a huge chunk!”

“A couple of years ago I was hiking in the national forest that's next to Breckinridge, Colorado. There had obviously been a fire there in the not-to-distant past, because a lot of the tree trunks were still blackened. It smelled a little of the fire, but when I asked locals when the fire had happened, most of them answered, "What fire?" It was strange.”

“The people that set that fire need to set on fire when they are caught!

8)”

“before we burn them, maybe we should cover them in honey and tie them down to an ant-hill!!!”

“Some say that Jeffery bark smells like vanilla. I say it's closer to butterscotch.

I share some of your same observations about the hike. Here's my journal entry from two weekends ago: Mt Islip

Peace-”

“I've been too lazy to do a trip report because, anmong other things it's mixed up with my 'Bummer!' thread and I shall probably have to finish THAT some time, but I went Caribou hunting in northern Quebec at Christmas.

We were as far north as you can drive outside of the Mackenzie or Alaska highways and we were in the area of the huge forest fires. The fires were huge, that is, willow and black spruce don't grow much over 15 feet in the Taïga. These were the fires that darkened the skies in New York, Baltimore and Washington. It was quite the sight among an incredible variety of new sights for me. I can appreciate what you saw.

On the other hand, I listened to an interview with a wildlife biologist on CBC right after the Valdez disaster. She said that catacysmic events are repaired inexorably by Mother Nature and that they are far less damaging then the constant deterioration of the environment that often has permanent effect.

Just a word of hope.

Doug”

“Great pictures tekdude. I've been to digital drifter several times looking at the different hikes and am always impressed. It pains me to think that neither I nor my children and perhaps their children, will never see this forest the way it was a mere 2 years ago. Let's just hope that this fire season is filled with cooler heads and more respect for nature, less of the selfishness our species seems to strive for. See ya on the trail...”