Open terrain

The technical term for what they're doing to almost 300 acres behind my place is "logging the shit out of it." It's the most drastic timber harvest I've seen on this face of the range since I moved here in 1989.

This is just the easternmost swath. The real work stretches to the left of this view, farther than I cared to venture on this recon. They're still noisily at work over there.

Features are exposed that I had only seen before under mature trees.

This rocky step is ten or fifteen feet high. The mountainside has two or three such formations on the rise to the nearest summit.

The open slope would provide an exhausting number of skiable lines with enough snow. The ground was already rough, and has now been churned and trenched by the passage of massive machinery. The snow will need to be deep, with a dense base. Even then, knee pads and controlled speed are advised.

When the slope was completely forested, back in the last century, it was overlooked by everyone except a couple of skiers and a few hunters.  But a big white snowfield is like a giant billboard. It could attract motorheads who will gash it all up and make depressing noises while they're at it. Previous logging operations, as big as they seemed, were way less drastic than this one. This one can be seen for miles.

Even worse would be if it was subdivided and developed. I used to have nightmares about the forest being torn down and various things built on the mountain, including a WalMart. Elements of these dreams have happened in real life, but without the intrusion of human structures and permanent activity, for the most part. I have to learn not to care. Give it up. Go elsewhere. But the convenience of a wilderness that abutted my yard was pretty darn nice.

The loggers have been at it for what seems like months, and they sound like they're still at full throttle.