Crown King Burn Pictures

 My friend ventured up to CK and beyond this week and brought back some burn photos. The first is the main road into CK

and Hell's Hole, which is just right out of town

You can see how it's almost a complete loss of ground cover, which means with all the monsoon activity there will be landslides for sure. That's probably why the Forest Service has closed the road out to Horsethief Basin, which is the real area I wanted to see. Especially the Lane Mountain area, which is (was?) my annual hang-out location.  Heading over FS 192, which is the back road up from Lake Pleasant, he sent me these images of more burned areas

It looks like the same as Hell's Hole with the exception that some trees may have survived. Again a total loss of any ground cover, which is partially good but also bad.  As soon as the Senator Highway is opened to Horsethief Basin I plan on checking it out. Probably will need some heavy duty meds when I see what has happened.

Keep in mind I have a whole drive full of pictures from that area when it was lush and green. I'll probably go into shock...

I'm off this weekend looking for more monsoon photos.

Sometimes I wonder how much pine forest were gonna have left in this state. You can't hardly go anywhere without seeing a major burnout from the last 10 years or so. Very sad to see these pictures.

You are so right. Back in the '70's there were two fires, one at Battle Flat and the other at Horsethief Basin. I think there is a Forest Service informational sign on the latter. The scars of both are still clearly visible today. Most notably the loss of pine trees and the invasion of scrub brush and other undesirable vegetation.

When the bark bettle invasion struck in 2002, a ranger told me RE: the dead trees, that the "best thing" would be for a fire to come along and clean everything out. I thought that was a pretty shocking remark. Looks like they are getting their wish.

But for the record I don't think it was good at all. A fire is not the solution to poor forestry management. Now the whole area around CK and Horsethief has been laid to waste. Who wants to camp or  whatever in a big pile of ashes.