In case you missed it - Frank Aebly and Hinda Darner of the Upper Lake Ranger District of the Mendocino National Forest discuss the impacts from the 2018 Ranch Fire and the efforts to restore the landscape.

​The sun was already setting behind Mt Konocti and the Black Forest was deep in shadow by the time I started the climb. There was no official trail, but someone had left hints: cairns stacked atop decomposing douglas fir logs, or balanced precariously on huge boulders; and, best of all, a sturdy branch carved on one end into the perfect walking stick. I have a habit of following social trails, but this one was particularly steep, and the rocky dirt under my feet meant that for every two steps I took, I slid back one. Whenever I was about to give up, turn back – surely only deer had gone farther than this, any person would have stopped by now – I would see another cairn, another sign that my determination wasn’t unique. I kept on.

​I was trying to reach something that I’d seen from the ground: a tall bluff of exposed rock on the side of Mt. Konocti, which juts out into the Black Forest like the figurehead of a ship. I have a condition called being a climber, and it means that when I see rock, I must touch it. And that was some big rock. The only trouble: as soon as I entered the Black Forest, that bluff disappeared. The trees stood so thick that when I looked behind me as I climbed, I couldn’t see Clear Lake, despite the severity of the slope and how close the Black Forest is to the lakeshore. Forget seeing above me to the bluff – I had no hope of that at all. I just had to imagine that whoever set the cairns was also interested in getting to where I was going.