HIKING UP THE TRAIL, I was struck by the contrast between colorful wildflowers—Indian paintbrush, Lupine, Columbine, Mule Ears—and the blackened remains of what were once mature trees, now reduced to branchless, charcoal-black remnants of a forest.
The last time I’d taken this trail was before the Caldor Fire ripped through part of California’s Sierra Nevada range in fall of 2021, burning nearly a quarter of a million acres. Back then, the trail passed through a classic mid-elevation Sierra forest of Jeffrey and Ponderosa Pines, and Incense Cedars, all interspersed with open glades and granite
