In this heavily timbered forest, it is hard to imagine myself saying "maybe they should have cut a little more."

But, maybe they should have.

The beetle-borne fungal infection is continuing to spread.

The new dying trees standing colourfully next to the grey skeletons of last year's victims. The neighboring green conifers still looking green and vibrant, even though many of them are already dead.

They just don't know it yet. Or show it. But the beetles are in them. The fungus is in them. And when it spreads and cuts off their sap flow, they too will look like pretty, artificial Christmas trees.

In the middle of summer.

I'm told what is needed to kill back the beetles, and what has been lacking for so many consecutive years, is a couple winters with weeks of exceptionally bitter cold. To freeze the trees deep inside, and kill a generation or two of beetle larvae.

Doesn't look promising with global warming.

Without it, these mountains will be as grey as those I visited last month. Solid expanses, for mile upon mile, of grey conifer skeletons. The only green left being the stands of aspen, and...

The young, more resistant conifers.

In the healing scars of timber cuts.