Disappearing forest

The forest behind our office is being cut. I hope the whole forest will not be cut. It looks like just a path is being cut. But it's depressing nonetheless. The top picture is from a walk on March 30, 2007. You can see ruts in the path caused by dirt bikers but those have decreased over the years as rain, snow and the feet of hikers have evened out the dirt. As with all of my pictures: Just click on it to get a larger view. I'm using smaller views here today because I have more pictures to show with not as much text. The real pictures are larger.

The second picture was taken March 20, 2009. It shows the result of the cutting. This section doesn't look as bad as other areas because, I assume, the machine had a harder time operating on this relatively steep slope.

The third picture gives a clearer view of the extent of the cutting. It sure makes my lunch-time walk less interesting. We'll see if there is as much wildlife showing up as spring progresses. Today is the first day of spring this year.

The last pictures shows a little hope. One small pine seeding survived the cutting and will start the process of filling this area back in. That is unless there are development plans for this area. I'll let you know what happens.