A very strange site in this otherwise total burn! This is a beautiful, lonely ancient Ponderosa Pine that has totally escape the flames of the fire that burned everything else around here. This is because this tree is growing right on top of the ridge right in the middle of the wide swath cut through the forest by the forest service. The tree is so magnificent that the forest service left it standing while cutting down everything else around it to make way for the ski trail. After the forest service preserved it, the forest fire destroyed everything else around it. The flames from the forest fire could not reach this tree and it escaped. The next photo shows the beautiful, green canopy on this tree.