Mount Lemmon is a 9,000-foot “sky island” of forests, whose summit boasts much-cooler summertime temperatures than the sweltering valley floor below. Saguaros skirt the mountain’s lower slopes while a mix of evergreens (mainly Douglas fir and ponderosa pine) reside above. Being set amidst a desert, this place is prone to droughts and the occasional destructive inferno. In June and July 2003, the “Aspen Fire” roared up the mountain, burning most of the structures in the resort town of Summerhaven and killing these, among many conifers in the surrounding forest. Sixteen years later, even as wildflowers and young trees rise from the previously denuded tan soil, the skeletons of the old forest command attention and remind everyone here of the power of the flames.
2 WNW Summerhaven AZ (17 Jul 19) Looking NNW
32.4524, -110.7835Ghosts of Forest Past
Mount Lemmon is a 9,000-foot “sky island” of forests, whose summit boasts much-cooler summertime temperatures than the sweltering valley floor below. Saguaros skirt the mountain’s lower slopes while a mix of evergreens (mainly Douglas fir and ponderosa pine) reside above. Being set amidst a desert, this place is prone to droughts and the occasional destructive inferno. In June and July 2003, the “Aspen Fire” roared up the mountain, burning most of the structures in the resort town of Summerhaven and killing these, among many conifers in the surrounding forest. Sixteen years later, even as wildflowers and young trees rise from the previously denuded tan soil, the skeletons of the old forest command attention and remind everyone here of the power of the flames.
2 WNW Summerhaven AZ (17 Jul 19) Looking NNW
32.4524, -110.7835