"I was retracing my steps of 20 years earlier to a scene of mass death I had never been able to erase from my mind. At a small plateau alongside Ninemile Creek in the Golden Trout Wilderness Area, I had stood in a forest of black sticks standing on both sides of a steep canyon like whiskers on a beast too large to comprehend."
"The first two miles were pleasant enough. The grade was mild, the forest serene. It was what lay ahead that worried me: A 2,500-foot descent to Jordan Hot Springs, a spot in California's High Sierra backcountry that has long had a hold on my imagination - an idyllic meadow with rock-dammed bathtub-hot pools. Given my age and lack of recent high-altitude exertion, I could easily need a helicopter to get out."
A hiker returns to Jordan Hot Springs after two decades to inspect burn scars and assess forest recovery. The route includes a steep 2,500-foot descent into an idyllic meadow with rock-dammed hot pools. A 2002 fire left a plateau of blackened trunks along Ninemile Creek, evoking mass-tree mortality and enduring questions about postfire regeneration. The 2020 Castle fire's imagery spurred a revisit after a shocking drive along Highway 190 revealed widespread disfigurement. The trip probes whether Sierra forests are overgrown, whether suppression contributed to destructive crown fires, and whether charred landscapes can recover.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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