Contentment by design - Living

The forest we hiked through today was wet. What a welcome change from last year when everything was dry, dry, dry all summer long. We hiked to an area that burned in the late 1970s. Today it is well along the path to recovery and, because the area is more open than is typical in Rocky Mountain forests, it is full of wildflowers in early summer. L
ast week I shared a photo of the beautiful fireweed flower. The area we visited today was abundant with them. Apparently this plant appears after a fire and helps bind the soil, and then once the forest has regrown, it disappears.

A couple miles up the trail is one of my favorite views towards the Continental Divide, just south of Mount Meeker. We're heading to the area of the fire scar you can see on the left side of the photo. It's a place where a young forest of mixed conifers and aspens is re-establishing, and where there is an abundance of wildflowers in the spring.