We've been watching this one for more than a month; there's been so little coverage in the news, I assumed that it was just about out after the last snow.

BTW, if you are at all familiar with the park, one of these days the west side is going to be a very grim picture, indeed. Just like Yellowstone (before the conflagration), there's a vast amount of dry dead beetle killed forest; ripe for a big fire.

I had no idea that fire was still going.

We spent a few nights in Morraine Park Campground last summer.
Getting any equipment to battle a fire would be very difficult in most of the entire park. Don't see that they could do much other than from the air.

The Cub Lake loop is one of my wife's favorite hikes in the Park. We do it a couple times a year, typically. Three years ago her favorite tree, a huge towering ponderosa pine that smelled like sweet vanilla, succumbed to beetles. Last year the top two-thirds of it toppled over in a windstorm. So much is changing in such a short time, it's sad to see.

Yes, it will be a grim day when the west side along the Kawuneeche Valley burns.

But ironically these forests need fire. The burned out section of trail near Ouzel Falls, from the 30-year-ago Wild Basin fire is now the lushest part of the trail.

Still it's sad, and here it is December and there's a fire above 8000 feet!

Wonder what it will be like walking this trail next spring?

I doubt that there will be any fire fighting, other than historic structures, when it comes (and it will). The best thing for the area would be a fire, actually, as Nelson says.

On Friday I hiked the Greyrock trail several miles up the Poudre from Fort Collins, my first time there since the High Park Fire.

Without forgetting the tragedy of the fire, the forest looked much better than expected. Patches of untouched green pines mingled with swaths of totally blackened tree skeletons. Some mullen and grasses were already growing even though we desperately need moisture.

From the summit of Greyrock the seemingly random pattern of burned areas was evident.

The strangest thing was to see a 2x2 foot deep hole in the ground with tunnels heading off in all directions. Then you realized that's where the roots incinerated, leaving nothing but the tunnel behind. Fifty feet away stands a green tree.

Downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, juncos, and chickadees were all feeding on or near the scorched trees. The downys seemed to chose those over live trees, maybe the fire did part of the work for them and they had good pickings on bugs that were still in there? But no signs of deer or even squirrels.

It will be interesting to watch the recovery over the coming years.

We were surprised when we were at the park after Thanksgiving. We could see the smoke as we drove to Sprague Lake. The person in the Estes Park Visitor Center said that the Park Service thought they could handle the fire when it first started and didn't ask for additional help.

It has to be scary for the residents in Estes Park. If the winds pick up again and the fire shifts, that little town could be wiped out.

I agree about the west side of the park, we hiked to Big Meadows last summer. I would say that 80% of the trees in the mountains surrouding the meadows were either dead or dying from the beatle infestation. It is a fire just waiting to happen.

Do you have an exit plan, in case you want to murder your 16-year-old in the middle of nowhere??