Column by Hal Walter
Wildfire – September 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
THROUGH THE SMOKEY HAZE of summer forest fires, up and down the ranges from Westcliffe to Leadville, stands of copper-brown beetle-killed evergreen trees paint the mountainsides like a sepiatone photograph.
The clusters of dead trees, their needles still clinging, stand out like pock marks on the lush woods of the Wet Mountains. They mottle the flanks of the Sangre de Cristos.
