Seventh Annual Hassey "Goat Vacation"

[Nanno]

Looks like you're on the home planet of the dreaded pine beetle.

Good guess! But the wonderful thing about the dreaded pine beetle (actually this was probably spruce budworm) is that it allows the aspens to grow where once were dense, dark evergreen woods. They attack primarily mature trees, and strong, young trees of all varieties have a chance to shoot up and take over very quickly. I'm amazed at how tall some of the young trees already are even though these woods only died about five years ago. Some of the new spruce trees are already pushing 20 feet high and look as healthy as they can be. And did I mention the aspens?? Everywhere we looked, under the old dead spruce trees, we could see blazing bits of yellow where a few aspens still clung to their leaves. I wish we'd seen it two weeks earlier. The mountains would have been pure gold shot with fiery red and orange. I can't wait to see what these woods look like in another 5-10 years when the aspens have completely taken over.