SUMMIT COUNTY — The men stomp through the snow, snaking torches into stacks of timber and sparking flames. Soon, thin wisps of smoke turn dense and dark as orange flames lick the 10-foot tall piles of dead trees. Dozens of bonfires begin melting growing rings of snow, sending smoke high above Summit County last week. […]
beetle kill
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors
Changes to logging planned near Grand Mesa Nordic ski trails could cut conflict. But will the sawmill agree?
Nordic skiers and forest managers took steps Friday toward lessening the impacts of a logging operation on a popular winter recreation area on the top of the Grand Mesa. Officials with the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest sat down with representatives from the Grand Mesa Nordic Council for two hours and came away […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, News, Outdoors
A recent timber sale is about to send 250 giant logging trucks through a pristine Grand Mesa Nordic skiing area
High atop the Grand Mesa in Western Colorado, where elevation and a rippling topography come together to create some of the state’s prime early-season cross-country ski terrain, logging is about to collide with recreation. A planned timber sale near the Grand Mesa Nordic Council’s Skyway trail system will allow logging trucks to rumble over a […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Wildfire
Opinion: Climate change is making Rocky Mountain forests more flammable now than at any time in the past 2,000 years
By Philip Higuera, The University of Montana; Bryan Shuman, University of Wyoming; and Kyra Wolf, The University of Montana The exceptional drought in the U.S. West has people across the region on edge after the record-setting fires of 2020. Last year, Colorado alone saw its three largest fires in recorded state history, one burning late […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, News, Newsletters, Outsider
The slow fade of Colorado’s mountain pine beetle is triggering a massive shift in the timber industry
Colorado’s forests have been waging a losing battle against tree-killing beetles for more than 15 years. Now, after marching across the state and killing millions of acres of pine forest, the burrowing, fungus-spreading mountain pine beetles are slowly losing steam. While other beetles have thrived in Colorado’s drought-ravaged mountains, the mountain pine beetles have reigned […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Wildfire
East Troublesome fire held in Rocky Mountain National Park; two deaths confirmed
Firefighters attempting to protect the town of Estes Park from the fast-moving East Troublesome fire on Saturday kept the flames within the road system in Rocky Mountain National Park. Heavy snow is in the forecast for Saturday night, but federal incident commander Noel Livingston said there was significant growth in what is now known as […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors, Technology
We know the earth is warming. We know that will stress water in the West. But we don’t know how.
Flavio Lehner was a graduate student working with computer models simulating Earth’s climate at the University of Berne in Switzerland when he had a chance to join a research vessel collecting sea temperatures and measuring ocean currents between Greenland and Svalbard, Norway. “As a lifestyle, field work is very agreeable,” Lehner said. “But for me, […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Outdoors, Politics and Government
Trump’s “energy dominance” push changing plans for 3 million acres of Colorado land, local stewards say
Federal land managers are about to close the door on public input to decade-long resource management plans for sweeping swaths of public land in Colorado that now reflect the Trump Administration’s focus on boosting domestic energy production. That focus conflicts with new state laws aimed at protecting wildlife and improving air quality, which has united […]
Posted inEnvironment, Outdoors, Water, Wildfire
Climate change is transforming Western forests. And that could have big consequences far beyond wildfires.
LA VETA — From her family’s summer cabin north of Walsenburg, Camille Stevens-Rumann could see the glow of the Spring Creek Fire on the ridge to the south in the summer of 2018. “It was pretty spectacular, my 4-year-old was excited,” she said This past June, Stevens-Rumann walked a burnt slope near the town of […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Energy, Environment, Growth, News, Outdoors, Wildfire
This Colorado ranch-made-lab is turning beetle-kill trees into lumber in the name of forest health
Trinchera Blanca Ranch has three 14ers, large elk herds and thousands of acres of dying trees that are fueling a thriving business and new experiments in forest health management.