Submitted by fiveriverstu on Mon, 2013-09-16 17:42 Five Rivers - 451 Vote Up Down +4 + P1010037.JPG Too much water - not too little - is on the mind of most Coloradans right now. But that was not the case earlier this summer. Member Bob Rosenberg and I had a conversation at last week's general meeting about the fate of some of our favorite streams during the fires earlier this summer. Bob was kind enough to contact the GPS coordinator at the San Juan National Forest to get some final maps and data on the areas affected. Here is a link showing the final area burned (it takes a minute to load, at least on MY computer):ftp://ftp2.fs.fed.us/incoming/r2/sanjuan/DataRequest/Vicinity_20130909_Landscape_WestFork_11x17.pdf And this is beyond my technical capabilities to understand, but I am told it is a zip file of the GPS coordinates of the burns:ftp://ftp2.fs.fed.us/incoming/r2/sanjuan/DataRequest/WestForkComplex_perimeters.zipI am told that those of you with Garmins will find this useful. While one of Bob's areas of interest - Trout Lake - was spared, my beloved Trout Creek below the lake (pictured, in happier times) was not so fortunate. With the bark beetle decimating our forests, is this the inevitable fate of most of our alpine watersheds? Can anything be done? Will streams close to Durango suffer the same fate? Have any of YOUR favorites been affected? Any thoughts?