As I came over Trout Creek Pass into the Arkansas Valley, I could see the smoke gathering in the southern part of the valley around Salida. Smoke got thicker as I came further south, over Poncha Pass, and down into the San Luis Valley.
The West Fork complex fire (a combination of three fires) was burning up Wolff Creek Pass...burning at this point some 60,000 plus acres of dead, dead pine beetle killed forest...about 80 miles to the southwest. As the prevailing winds blow toward this end of the valley, it is a smokey time at the hot springs where I came for the weekend.
I guess this is the new normal. Summer means forest fires in the Rockies...not just in Colorado but all through the west. Another fire burns just west of here in Saguache. And others go off around the region.
So, what to do? Well the smoke often embellishes the sunsets...that is an upside.
But it will take years, perhaps decades, to clear out these dead forests. Travel in the summer in the mountains needs to be flexible...one has to be able to choose a spot to camp but be willing to move ( quickly if necessary) to another town or forest. Not a good time to plant oneself down to a
"permanent first or second home" in these hills. Better to be here in the winter when the snow storms can be predicted with greater precision that where a spot fire may land from a wider conflagration.
How quickly this symptom of climate change has occurred. How quickly we have to adjust. How slowly our governments and ways of thinking make change. We will, however, move along...plod along...perhaps at the pace that earlier homo sapiens set out some 200,000 years ago to spread across the continents.
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