They&#39;re cutting down my forest&#33;  <img src="http://www.cruisecrazies.com/community/images/forum/tr-emoticons/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":sad2:" border="0" alt="sad.gif" /> <br /><br />I was out hiking this morning, and entered a clearing where all of the trees had recently been cut down.  The logs had been stacked on an adjacent piece of private property known as the Red Tail Ranch. I had last snowshoed to that part of the forest a couple months ago, and noticed some peculiar orange paint markings on many of the trees.  Now I know what they were marking.<br /><br />I can&#39;t really blame them.  Colorado now has hundreds of thousands of acres containing pine beetle-killed trees.  If the Forest Department doesn&#39;t do anything, Mother Nature will; she simply won&#39;t abide all of the dead trees.  And her methods will be far less controlled.<br /><br />I don&#39;t expect them to cut the forest down, but to rather create large swaths of empty forest to form a break when the fire finally happens.  On a positive note, there are alot of shorter trees, of different varieties, growing that will now have a chance to capture the sunshine and grow.  The Lodge Pole Pine dominated forest will become more diverse.  Sort of reminds me of that awesome song by Rush, <i>The Trees</i>.  Google the lyrics, and you&#39;ll see what I&#39;m talking about.