Take Me To Post Comment Form If you've been to Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains and you've seen the skeletons of fir trees, killed decades ago by an invasive insect, the balsam woolly adelgid, then you know how it feels. If you've hiked through Virginia and seen virtually every Eastern hemlock tree dead from another invasive insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid (which is rapidly making its way through Georgia), then you know how it feels. That's the same feeling I get when I make my annual drive through Colorado, from Denver west to Glenwood Springs. Every year, as I pass through the Arapaho and White River national forests, I see more and more reddish-brown lodgepole pine trees. They are being killed by the mountain pine beetle, and the infestation is spreading with astonishing swiftness. Surprisingly, the mountain pine beetle is not an exotic species. It is native to Colorado, just as the Southern pine beetle is native to Georgia. But scientists believe that Colorado's drought, much more prolonged than the one we are currently suffering through here, has made the trees more susceptible to disease. They also think global warming could be a factor. And they believe the forest has become too much of a monoculture, with all the trees the same age and not enough biodiversity. (Our Oconee National Forest in middle Georgia has a similar problem.) Foresters predict that in just a few years, 90 percent of the pines in that section of Colorado will be dead. It is a sobering sight as you drive west on I-70, starting east of the Eisenhower Tunnel and continuing all the way through Vail. (Wonder what the dead trees are going to do to the property values of all that ritzy real estate?) There's nothing that can be done to halt the infestation. It will have to run its course. Eventually, new vegetation will arise to replace the dead trees. The big concern now is that all these dead pines are creating an enormous amount of fuel that will lead to catastrophic fires. The only way to prevent that would be to chop them all down now and clear them away. But the area affected is so vast, that's just not feasible. And where would you put the millions of dead trees? It's a forest management nightmare. I am just trying to enjoy the White River forest while I still can, just as I try to really appreciate the hemlocks in Georgia before they are all gone. I have much, much more to tell you about my journey through Colorado. Stay tuned for the next installment.