[pct-l] drought and its consequences along the PCT

[blisterfree at isp01.net (Brett)]

The original question concerned fires along the PCT, and the 
reasons for increase in catastrophic fires throughout the 
west in recent years. Let's not blame it on the Indians, 
historical precedence, or solely on natural phenomena. Fuel 
loads in western forests are unnaturally high today as a 
direct result of federal policy. This is the gasoline, so to 
speak. Drought, lightning, and carelessless - these are the 
unavoidable ignition sources. You can't idiot-proof the 
wilderness, especially when wilderness is now so accessible 
to so many. But we can try to reduce the hand of idiocy upon 
it. I'm not suggesting this might not, in fact, be happening 
now. As usual, though, it's little, and it's late. 
Thankfully there's a silver lining. Catastrophic fires are 
nature's way of reducing fuel loads! And to the extent that 
the hand of man and his roadbuilding machinery are applied 
only sparingly to these fires, with any luck those forests 
will one day - not in my lifetime perhaps, but one day - 
return to a healthy state.

As a friendly aside, Native Americans hunted the buffalo as 
a food source. Actually, it was their supermarket. Plains 
Indians absolutely required the buffalo for their survival. 
This is one of the primary reasons the settlers and 
sportsmen shot the buffalo indiscriminately - they were 
trying to starve the Indians into submission. And it worked. 
Only took about 4 years to kill off virtually every one of 
them. The buffalo, I mean. Natives were left to scavenge the 
buffalo corpses for bones, which in desperation they then 
sold to the white man in exchange for cash, which they would 
spend immediately for items of sustenance at the white man's 
stores. Such is the price of progress, I guess. Personally, 
I'd prefer to have been an Indian in the midst of a buffalo 
drive. Sowers of destruction, they were not.

- blisterfree