Features photos gallery
The Last Stand: Part 5
Aspens are the dominant species at the Red Creek subdivision in North Routt County, where mature lodgepoles were thinned.
Doug Allen, vice president of mountain operations for Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp., vividly remembers the Oct. 24, 1997, blowdown that ignited the local spruce beetle boom.
Healthy spruce trees near the Flat Tops Wilderness Area slowly are growing tall enough to reach the tops of the dead spruce, which have remained standing for 50 years because of their strong root systems.
A dead spruce tree is surrounded by healthy trees near the Flat Tops Wilderness Area.
North Routt County resident Charlie Cammer looks up the stairs in his home, which he built at his wife's request using beetle-killed, blue-stain lodgepole pine.
The birth of a lodgepole pine stand is under way at Charlie Cammer's property, where saplings stand just a few inches tall.
John Anarella, a Yampa-based wilderness ranger, looks over the Sheriff Reservoir into the Flat Tops Wilderness Area. On the spillway is what Anarella guessed is the remains of a spruce tree that was killed during the spruce beetle epidemic 50 years ago.
John Anarella examines what remains of the spruce trees that were killed during the spruce beetle epidemic in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area 50 years ago.
Colorado State Forest Service forester John Twitchell, left, and North Routt County resident Dave Hessel prepare to survey beetle-infected trees in the Willow Creek Pass subdivision.
North Routt County resident Charlie Cammer built his home at his wife's request using lodgepole pine.
Aspens are the dominant species at the Red Creek subdivision in North Routt County, which was thinned of many of its mature lodgepole pine trees.
Charlie Cammer said using the wood to build his barn was part of the grieving process of losing his pines.
Charlie Cammer built his wife Barb a bookcase out of blue-stain wood.
The sign marking the beginning of the Routt National Forest on Gore Pass is surrounded with beetle-killed trees.
Dead lodgepole pines glow in the moonlight in North Routt County.
A lodgepole pine sapling grows in North Routt County.
Dead spruce trees killed by the spruce beetle 50 years ago litter the forest floor surrounding John Anarella near Flat Tops Wilderness Area.
