Tim Smith

The Fern Lake Fire has restarted in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was in that area recently and had a chance to take some pictures. http://brooksmith.bl...n-national.html

Unbelievably, recent warm weather and lack of snow has allowed this fire to rebound. We're up to 2 square miles burned now. They're saying an illegal campfire is the likely cause.

Quick question, JD...what do you do if your neighbor's kids wander onto your property?

Not at all. ZZ Top is a great band. But they didn't get those beards in Los Angeles.

Well, this was supposed to be your list, Ness...but if we're mentioning unmentionables and you're close enough to a bridge in town there's usually a pretty fair assortment of those strewn about the place.. Throw in a few bags of puppies and kittens and computers and appliances nobody wanted either... ...then the porn magazines that probably required multiple felonies to produce... Then once you're really into it, there are the feminizing hormones, the odd meth head, the redneck who flunked out of Sunday school, toxic algae...I think the EPA samples for the rest.

Well I'm glad all kidding is aside. I always thought pecker woods were the natural habitat for ZZ Top so that all makes perfect sense to me.

The recent sightings also included recorded calls. Can ya splain how ya did that part? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428132236.htm

That says a lot when you can mention fecal material but there are other things out there too nasty to mention. You're right though. There's nasty. Then there's nasty.

Agree with that. Too many people out there with selfish intentions and low ethics.

As crazy as it sounds some even think of keeping rare species as "conservation" because they're "helping" the species survive...despite the fact that the vast majority of pets die with no hope of ever reproducing. That said, keeping common aquatic species probably does little harm...on balance it might even be a good thing.

Mud puppies are pretty awesome too, but they're a different, smaller species. I've seen a few of those, but not recently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necturus

Amazing, Justin. Incredibly jealous and deeply impressed. I've snorkeled the Ozarks looking for them but have never found one yet.

I had that happen in Illinois a couple of times. Nothing like this yet in Colorado, Arkansas, Louisiana, California or Texas. Seems to me most of the truly clueless idiots I've met in the woods have been in the northern Ozarks. Oddly high number of people walking around on the interstate at night there too... maybe for the same reason.

Given how close the election is going to be that's a major concern, Jack. As close as things are we could have 4 or 5 Florida type situations this time around and the last thing we need is confusion (especially since a likely outcome at this point is an electoral victory that contradicts the popular vote). Most of the states in the storm path aren't in play, but Virginia, Pennsylvannia (sort of) and New Hampshire are at least statistically close.

We're holding steady at 1000 acres burned now. The burn area reaches from the right side of the pool in the picture above to the upper side of that valley. Here's a picture from October 10 during the fire. http://wildfiretoday.com/2012/10/10/update-on-fern-lake-fire-west-of-estes-park/ Here's the same spot yesterday:

I used to do it before I knew better too, Mitch. Glad we agree about that and sorry to pile on. Just wanted to be sure those points were out there if fishing the beds was going to stay on the table.

...went to RMNP today to the area where this fire has been burning. Recent snows knocked the wind out of it's sails, but winds are strong and the rangers said they're expecting the hot spots to flare up again as it warms up later in the week. The Fern Lake trailhead is blocked at the restroom/turn around. I'll post pictures later.

....and leave the nest unguarded while they're recovering from being caught, sometimes never returning and often resulting in the loss of a large percentage of the eggs or fry on the nest. Which is why it's best not to fish for bass on the beds if you want more bass in your system.

People started selling a hell of a lot more defective flies once I hit my 40s.

The only fish I have consistently seen come back to a bait after they have felt the hooks are spotted bass...and I've only seen that on a few rivers. Jerry's right. Let her cool off and try again in a few days.

Sediment budgets work like all other budgets. (Sediment in) - (Sediment out) = (Sediment in the stream). I don't know enough about the upper Big Thompson or the soils there (or soils in general) to have a clear idea how this will play out. I do know fire effects vary from almost nothing to pretty bad. I also know that the forests in RMNP aren't typical of what was there in the past. The amount of standing dead timber there is abnormally high. Fortunately they're expecting precipitation tomorrow and later in the week so maybe thing will wind down soon. I think part of the problem on the Poudre was that soon after the fires, landslides began. That picture I took on the Poudre was from about a month ago. The river was still running brown with a high sediment load. If that same process begins on the Big Thompson, it could be a problem. I see a lot of high gradient and bare rock at the site of the Fern Lake fire. We'll see. High flows are going to move a lot of sediment in and out of the system. The low gradient meandering valleys will probably take the biggest hits. Wherever the water slows it will drop much of the sediment it is carrying. The sediment walks down the river in dunes, filling the holes. I'll be watching this one carefully.

The fire is to about 800 acres now and still at 30% containment. Right now the National Park System is managing the fire for full suppression, so there won't be any clean slates for the region this time around. Ness, your point is correct, but the problem with trusting the system to reset is that depending on conditions those forests could be lost for hundreds of years not just a few dozen. The Heyman fire has shown very little recovery and that recovery process is going to be measured in hundreds of years depending on local conditions. With climate change settling in, the recovery won't necessarily recover to the system we had before. That might not matter in terms of fisheries or biodiversity, but that's not clear yet. One thing we're likely to face in the meantime is that once those steep hill sides are denuded, they're going to start shedding sediment. Below is a picture of the gravel in the Big Thompson. It's a fully free stone river with very little sediment loading. In contrast, here's the substrate in the Pouder River where the High Park fire has loosened the hillsides and resulted in significant erosion. All those spaces filled between the stones means fewer places for invertebrates to hide, more problems with water quality during high flows, more heat in the water due to lower subsurface flows and more problems finding quality sites to build redds. That would be a sad fate for the upper Big Thompson, but we may be headed that way for a while. This year 2 different streams I've enjoyed fishing have burned. If this stream ends up sediment clogged, THIS is what we're losing...

It does appear this fire is in the Big Thompson watershed. They're reporting 30% containment today with total acres burned approaching 700 acres. They're calling it the "Fern Lake" fire. Here are some pictures of that area from a hike I took there last month.

MRSA contributes to or causes about 19,000 deaths in the US annually. It had shown up quite a few places before this including pets, livestock and in human populations. This is the first independent confirmation it is now occurring in wildlife. http://brooksmith.blogspot.com/2012/10/deadly-anti-biotic-resistant-bacteria.html Overuse of antibiotics especially in agriculture, is the major reason for the spread of this pathogen.

630 acres burned in the area of the Big Thompson headwaters this month in Rocky Mountain National Park. Winds today resulted in more fire activity. It's not out yet. Trail closures include: "Bear Lake Road remain closed, including the Cub Lake Trail, Fern Lake Trail, Hollowell Park Trail, Bierstadt Trail, Bear Lake to Fern Lake Trail, and all trails south of Trail Ridge Road, including Ute Trail." The fire is beetle fueled and late in the year, both traits of changes associated with climate change. You can read about the effects of climate change on these things on a board on in the parking lot looking up the valley where the fire is burning. Not sure how much this will affect the Big Thompson. Maybe someone else has looked at this and knows how many acres are directly in that watershed.