A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. --Aldo Leopold, "Thinking Like a Mountain"
Within the last few hours, the Wallow Fire raging in Arizona's White Mountains has increased to nearly 390,000 acres, resulting in a forced evacuation of Springerville and Eager. They're mostly the same funky little town, still kept separate probably by an old feud or some quirky story (like another White Mountain town, Show Low, which got its name from a turn of the cards). If you're an outdoorsy person, it's hard not to love this part of the state -- great hiking and camping.
And now the landscapes so many of us have enjoyed will be missing for a long time.
"That forest is our home and community. Our house is burning down whether we lose structures or not." -- James Nelson, Vice Mayor, Eager