Thoughts on the blowdown, 6 years later

I'm eager to get back up into the blowdown again this summer. In July of 1999, when the damage was fresh and the sound of chainsaws reverberated through the woods, I saw the blowdown as a tragedy, feeling loss at every shattered pine. But now, nearly six years on, there's a whole new excitement in observing the forest's response: saplings bursting out of the undergrowth into the sunlight, new flowers, opened vistas, and old survivors towering over the blowdown like battle-tested giants.

I'm not a professional ecologist, but I wonder if the blowdown won't be ultimately beneficial for the charismatic old-growth red & white pine species, opening up the landscape and giving saplings a chance to take the places of the fallen. And those lone survivors can reseed the hills during the next 100 years. I'm optimistic.