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Went camping on Mingus Mtn. above Jerome this weekend, and unfortunately (no I mean fortunately!!:) it rained almost the whole time we were there. It rained for extended periods of time and very heavily. The ground was completely saturated to the point of deep mud.

Another good news - bad news: I saw a salamander (very rare and first for me), but it was dead on the campground road. I can't believe these little creatures - so dependent on constant moisture, could persist through such an awful dry spell. He was probably out crawling around and revelling in the lovely rain and got run over on the road:(.

I took the family through the scenic route to Flagstaff this past Friday. We went over Mingus in the rain. It was sure great to see such a great rain. The trees have really took a beating this year though. Everywhere you go, the pines have started to pull a brown out. Is that from bark beetles?

GTG

I understand that the brown and dying pines are from a blight caused by the beetle. I'll bet that statewide that has caused more total trees destroyed than the big fires we just had, but you never hear much about it.

I can't believe you guys passed right by our campground. Wish you could have stopped by.

I saw the same browning in the Prescott area a couple of weeks ago, and Boynton Canyon on Labor Day.

Where'd you camp Fritzski? Potato Patch?

The Arizona Republic had a little blip on the beetles on Sunday. It says that an epidemic of the beetles could wipe out as much as 80% of the trees in Prescott National Forest. They've knocked out over 210,000 trees this past year. Evidently the trees are really weak from the drought. The article said that the problem will continue to grow until the drought ends or we get some extremely cold weather....of course they don't say what extremely cold is. We notice two weekends ago that there is a lot of browning below and around the Rim areas, too.

Yeah Mike we were in Potato Patch. What a sweet little campground. Really enjoyed it.

Did your Woodchute Mountain hike and took a little detour to the west to catch the summit. Got absolutely drenched on my return and the lightning scared the ---- out of me for about the third time this year. I'll get a comment w/ a couple pics out soon.

Tell me more about Potato Patch, I am planning to camp this weekend Sat thru Mon on the rim NW of Woods Canyon Lake.

Ahhh, my neck of the woods. Live in Prescott Valley and camped at Potato Patch a time or two with my children and hiked the Woodchute many of times; spent some overnighter as well on top of Woodchute. My favorite get to it quick, 45 minutes to get there trail. "The Brown Trees" are a sad sight though. Labor Day week-end hiked the Groom Creek Loop Trail and noticed large patches of brown forest. The little critter killing the trees are called Bark Beetles and for those who seen our brown forests it is sad to learn if a fire don't kill your forest during a drought, a little pest of a beetle will. The natural process I guess.

I went to Flagstaff Labor day to hike to the Inner Basin and was suprised by the damge the beatles did. At first i thot there was some small fires all around the area. It's really sad to see the forests so brown.