Utah Visit - Lost Lake Wildfire area after early June fire

Utah Visit - Lost Lake Wildfire area after early June fire


The first week of June, shortly after we returned from our May visit to Utah, you may recall, the Lost Lake Wildfire broke out near Annette and Larry's home on Boulder Mountain in Wayne County. Here is the photo Larry took just before he evacuated:

Note the knob, just left of center. Here is that area today, where you can still see how close the fire got, before turning back north, about 3/4 of a mile:

Looking a bit closer, you can still see the burned trees on the ridge:

We went for a drive, our first day here, to see the area back there, and will see that ridge, closeup, from the other side. We started our drive up and back down the mountainside, then turned left toward Coleman Reservoir rather than back into Teasdale. As we entered US Forest Service land, we saw these bales of straw. We assume they'll be using these to replant grasses and trees up in some of the burned area. If you look to the left and up on the mountainside, you can see the road to the house; and you can see Wilson's house that sits on the curve where you go back down to Annette and Larry's house.

Just a few hundred feet to the right of the above, you can see some burned trees on the mountainside:

Note the white slope, on the left... I took a closer image of that area to show burned trees:

On around, and the area was not impacted... a few aspens that haven't dropped their leaves, yet! ;-)

We made our way on up the mountainside in the Jeep toward the ridge. The Forest Service did a great job of improving the road while they were fighting the fire... thank you, very much. Still rugged, but nicely passable for normal mountain driving in four-wheel drive. Here is the first few of the ridge. Note that between the ridge and the road we were on, was a batch where the fire skipped over.

Those are same burned trees we could see from the porch... I have a couple of more views, from further up the road. The first looks back to the left, to the north, toward Thousand Lakes Mountain; the next, looks back east, toward Capital Reef, over the bowl where their house sits.

On the way up, we stopped at the Coleman Reservoir area, where we had visited a couple of years ago. Here is one of the few "signs" still standing:

Lost Lake is 3 miles forward and to the left. This road was impassable before the fire, except by ATV. Now, it is open a half mile or so... then must go the rest of the way on ATV, horseback, or on foot. To the right, is Coleman Reservoir - that was our destination.

Coleman is a popular fishing and camping area. Looking to the east, here, you see only one burned tree - just left of the tall pine on the right. Looking the other way, however, the aspens are burned up the hillside...

From up on the hill behind where I stood to take the above...

I turned around, and you can see all the burned trees they have begun to cut down. We are uncertain how they are deciding which trees to cut and which to leave standing. Larry said a lot more have been cut since they were up here earlier this summer.

Somewhere along the way, I took this photo to show a 'hot spot' where everything, apparently even the ground, was scorched by the intense heat of the fire, as it passed through!

Notice some cutting, here, as well. 

I've got more story to tell, but I'm already over my 'photo limit' for one post. More later.


Overall, it was a very good day... just sad to see the forest damage, but happy it came out as it did!  ;-)