The Burn

This is part of the Las Conchas fire that devastated parts of the Jemez mountains near Los Alamos and Jemez Springs. I went out this summer to one of my favorite places to see how things are recovering. Oddly, it's quite beautiful and dramatic--the charred trees reveal the landscape they once shrouded and you can see the canyons as far as they reach. Underneath the remains is millions of aspen sprouts, which will replace the once pine forest into the near future. It will be beautiful a decade.