Even in winter nothing seems to dampen the enthusiasm of the area's social deviants, young people who having nothing better to do with their time, wreak nasty mischief in the ravine. One mightn't imagine that these young miscreants would be enthusiastic about setting fires in the depth of winter, but obviously some view it as a challenge several seasons removed from the tinder-dry conditions of deep summer.

There was one giant pine in particular that seemed to attract their malice. There were two venerable pines side by side that intersected one of the trails at a point where it dips toward the ravine, and a bridge handily takes the trekker over to the other side. The two pines leaned outward rather than toward one another, and there was a narrow little space between them where the trail continued onward. One of the pines had suffered some natural damage at some point in its life, and it was within this barkless portion penetrating roughly several inches into the tree that area youth kept trying to light fires. Many years ago they succeeded in burning the tree at that point about a third through to its heartwood. The fire service had responded, putting out the blaze. But it wasn't the only occasion. Eventually the tree had suffered so much damage it presented as a threat to public safety, and the municipality cut the giant down. In their wisdom they also destroyed the pine beside it, and their corpses now litter an offshoot rivulet of the main ravine creek.

What remains now are the stumps of both trees, silent witness to a casual juvenile atrocity. And the young thugs haven't let that stop them. Though they continue to light fires elsewhere in our beautiful natural wooded ravine, they have returned time and again to those great stump remnants, lighting fires on them. The snow has not yet melted, there is a huge snowpack from this year's almost-record-breaking snowfall. There, the still pristine snow environment has been insulted by the presence of charred remnants of the latest fire, blackening the snow.

Ugly reminders to constant ravine users who deeply appreciate nature's gifts to us, that within any population there exists scum who see no value in anything but their disgusting idea of what constitutes pleasurable challenges.