Still too smokey for serious outdoor exercise here. It looks like the summit ridge and summit itself of Mt Wittenburg over at Pt Reyes survived, either due to that area routinely being cloud forest damper than the lower areas, or also because the trail as far as Sky Camp slightly below the summit ridge is a well maintained gravel service road. All four trails leading uphill from the Visitor Center area were heavily impacted by fire, as was the Woodward Trail up from the coast where the fire started. Two other trails lying slightly north are in the Vision Fire zone of 20 yrs ago, so did not re-burn this time due to lack of accumulated old tinder. The rest is fairly predictable. A year or two clearing the affected trails of fallen burnt trees, which they were already doing relative to sudden oak syndrome downfall. The coastal strand was mostly grass and lupine, and will recover very quickly. Marshier areas will be a riot of fireweed and other wildflowers over the next five years, and accessible from the Coast Trail. Pioneering species on affected upslopes will be poison oak, wild blackberry, huqe quantities of crowded Bishop pine, then as shade gradually arises, thimbleberries, alder, etc, with burnt snags and probably some surviving firs, just like in the adjacent recovering Vision fire. But on the drier slopes on the Hwy 1 side of the hill, I'll miss the owls and pileated woodpeckers that depended on old dead firs, the majestic old live oaks, colorful madrones, and the wonderfully intricate tree tunnel effects of old fir understory which I so often photograph. But there is still quite a bit of that left on the even longer ridges to the south of Bear Valley, where the fire was stopped. It was up to 4500 acres yesterday, but much of that area increase was due to deliberate backfires set on the grassier areas adjacent residential areas and park facilities. Gosh, I remember working the fires as a young feller. It's hard work, and I can hardly imagine what career forest fire fighters endure, sometimes at the risk of their lives, as you just pointed out.
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