The Forest Will Not Quit

As hard as it is to believe, large areas of the Front Range in Colorado are still ablaze, even under winter low temperatures and heavy snow-pack.

http://www.coloradoconnection.com/news/story.aspx?id=853700#.UQsLdb88CSo

The forests there have been through really rough patches these past few years, with fire being only the end of problems which have started with drought and climate-pushed insects doing quite the number on the spruce-fir forests.  Still, the western montane forests are incredibly resilient and have to deal with "normal" conditions that make life difficult enough.  Extremely low normal winter temperatures, intense solar radiation, and next to nothing for soil in many locations mean that only the best of the best can even establish here, and they do it well, even when it seems to us that they are struggling miniatures:

Rocky Mountain National Park.  The insect ravaged forests are all those gray-brown patches on the opposite slopes.  You can see a few trees even up here near the treeline.