ENTS,

    Monica and I took a late afternoon drive to the head of the Colorado Trail just west of town. The Colorado Trail is 483 miles long and runs from Durango to Denver. It goes through spectacular country to say the least. Monica and I will probably hike a tiny part of it, perhaps 10 miles total during our stay.
This afternoon, w e walked a couple hundred yards on it just to get say that we've been on it. It follows Junction Creek at its start. Old narrow leaf cottonwoods are everywhere. They are medium-sized here. Nothing to measure. However, there are some surviving old pines.  I spied a particularly handsome old ponderosa near the beginning of the trail. With my almost trusty Forestry 550, I got a respectable 111.5 feet for its height. Its girth is an even more respectable 12.0 feet ( approximately) . Yes, that's right. I didn't take my D-Tape on the drive. 
I decided that I needed to photograph that beauty and share it with my lady and fellow Ents. The first image below shows the whole tree. The second shows Monica next to it.  
The big tree symbolizes the abundance of great ponderosas out here. Scattered mature ones in the 120 to 180 year age range are common. Although logging between 1881 and 1990 or there about was ferocious, when you have land as rough as out here and a settlement period of 130 years, you get plenty of old growth spots that would be valuable in the East. 
I'm getting the idea that a lot of people out here like the pines, but know very little about what is ordinary, rare, or truly exceptional. I'd be most pleased to be part of an education process - after I educate myself. Lots to discover. 

Bob  

 

Big Ponderosa

 Ponderosa and Monica