Sugarloaf Mountain

The rain has finally come..........after what seemed like endless days of scorching Colorado sun bringing daytime temperatures of over 100F...........huge thick drops showering and splashing sideways onto mother earth...dropping brief relief on the parched ground and inhabitants. Here...the sun's rays can be so hot that even a violent rainstorm does little to alter the dryness of the ground...once the shower passes the earth is back to being...dry. The strangest thing about Colorado rain is that it is chillingly cold...snow cold...even in the heat of summer. Perhaps this is due to the altitude of the area......the mountains begin their ascent to the sky a mile high from the level of the sea where by contrast...the summer rain is usually warm...and always seemed to invite me to run into it...face upward...to receive its refreshing dew.
Moisture in all forms... rain ...snow...hail...sleet...are a constant topic of conversation for those who live here...especially during the summer...since the threat of forest fires is often...extreme. There have been a few notable fires in this area...the most memorable to me being the Sugarloaf Mountain...or Black Tiger...fire. This one...begun by an oblivious tossing his cigarette carelessly onto the parched mountain side...burned for four days...destroying forty four human homes...and over two thousand acres of beautiful...lush...mountain land...forcing unknown numbers of wildlife to seek shelter elsewhere. That Sunday in early July...sixteen years ago...my family and I had gone to Sugarloaf to visit friends. Shortly after turning onto Sugarloaf road from the western entrance... the smoke...and flames...became visible. The fire had just begun...on the eastern side...about 12 miles away...and was moving fast. In the five minutes or so that...mesmerized...we stopped to watch as the flames gathered speed and height...and spoke to the fire fighter volunteers who were just beginning to blockade the road...the fire had consumed numerous homes and was shooting flames furiously in our direction. The fire spread so quickly that our friends...forced to flee their home within minutes of the fire’s start...could see their house...and all their worldly possessions... burning to the ground as they drove to safety. In the next four days...the fire was visible from all directions ...the dense gray black smoke choking the air...our lungs...and our eyes. The fire burned all sides of the mountain...finally descending down its south face in Boulder Canyon...stopping just feet from the creek...which it surely would have jumped...and barely sparing several houses below Boulder Falls...
I look at the remnants of the Black Tiger fire every day...as my travels up and down the canyon bring me alongside the slowly renewing mountain...also visible from Boulder. I have watched... over the past fifteen years...the charred trees and earth... ever ... so... slowly ... renew...a little more...each year. Now...although many of the scorched tree skeletons still stand...the ground has grown a green cover...replacing the scars of the encounter. Watching the...painstaking ...and long...rejuvination process the mountain has undertaken to recover from having been burned... gives me hope in the healing power of time and helps me to see that we are not so different from the mountain...as we attempt to recover from whatever it is which has scarred us...sometimes letting the charred "trees" of our lives... reminders of our experience...coexist as new growth pushes through the damaged parts of our being...layer by layer ... year by year...