The Howling Wind and an Almost Fire

While winter has arrived in the snowy mountains behind Shyla, it is very dry grass and forest time at our elevation. You can see how dry the grass is that Shyla is running through.

One of the things that I love about here is how different elevations have different seasons at the same time.

Yesterday, I rode a route that I love with this beautiful view of our mountains and some angry clouds. My rib still hurts like a demon but it's not as bad as spinal pain so I can handle riding with it. My main concession to it is that I need to ride my bike that has the most cushioned suspension.

At the end of my ride, I decided to swing by an area where people like to camp to check for fires. It was 5% humidity with 35mph winds yesterday (and today) - so an ounce of prevention goes a long way.

Indeed, as I arrived at one empty campsite, I could see smoke and ashes being blown right out of the fire ring. The fire department has given me orange tape to mark the route into fires that I find (I find a lot of them). I marked the site, and then I took a photo and a video.

The photo doesn't look like much but there was a campfire smoldering deeply in the rock ring.

I wouldn't have been so alarmed except for the ferocity of the wind. You can sense that from this very short video.

The volunteer firefighters arrived and did a tremendous job of putting it out, even digging down deep to get the smoldering roots and other underground debris that can explode into a forest fire later.

I felt like I'd done a good deed for the day but I was upset to read that someone else found another campfire left burning in the same area this morning (and the winds are even higher today - and have caused two huge wildfires to break out in other parts of Colorado). When will people learn? We have ample examples from our area of campfire-sparked devastating wildfires.

All that I want to do is prevent our beautiful world from being burned up!

It is too beautiful here not to protect it.