As we drove last summer toward a hidden lake among the mountains of Northern Colorado there was the beauty of the forest surrounding us. Tall dark green pine trees on both sides of the road clinging to the sides of the mountains. It was a magnificent sight to see until we came into vast expanses of burned pine trees standing up from the ground like toothpicks. The evidence of forest fires from previous years went on for miles. The ground was also littered with fallen trees that had slid down the mountains and hills, making the beauty of the landscape dissipate to a very disturbing sight.

Trapper’s Lake

A few minutes into our hike I noticed patches of trees that had been saved from the forest fires, but all around them stood the skeletons of the forest. The burned trees stood as monuments of a life that once was vibrant…