In Telluride, Colorado the Aspens Made Me SAD

On our recent vacation in Colorado, we did what every fortunate visitor does: fall in love with the aspens. It never grows old and happens every time we visit. The trip was all golden light, mountain vistas, and rolling trails—basically a postcard. But not every aspen grove loved us back. Some looked thin, patchy, tired. And that was unsettling.

It may sound like a traveler's cliché—realizing the impact of climate change while on vacation. But what we were looking at wasn't just a bad season for the aspens. There's a name for it—and it's bleak in both acronym and reality: Sudden Aspen Decline (SAD).

SAD emerged after Colorado's brutal 2002 mega-drought. That drought never really left; it morphed into a new normal of heat stress and disappearing snowpack. Aspens are shallow-rooted and thirsty. When moisture is scarce, they suffer. Stressed trees invite fungus and pests; elk and deer browse new sprouts before they recover. Younger clonal stands—whole groves that share one ancient root system—can push new shoots from old roots, but they don't stand much chance if grazers or heat strike again.

Clonal stands sound technical, but are among the coolest things about aspens. Each tree you see above ground is usually not an individual but a sprout from a shared underground root system. That's why entire hillsides can turn color in perfect sync and why aspens are so resilient: if some stems die, the root system can send up new ones. Utah's famous Pando colony—47,000 stems, 13 million pounds, and at least 80,000 years old—is the best example. While individual trunks may come and go, the organism as a whole can endure for centuries—if conditions allow.

From the gondola dropping down from Mountain Village into Telluride, you don't just see one or two sick trees—you see entire ridgelines looking skeletal. For anyone who has witnessed the magic of the wall-to-wall aspen canopies in their full glory, it's jarring. Aspen groves are natural pillars for watersheds, fire defenses, and biodiversity. The Colorado State Forest Service's 2024 report shows that aspen defoliation affected about 9,500 acres statewide—still localized and not catastrophic, but a clear signal of stress in a cherished ecosystem.

This is no simple forest-health issue—it's a public-safety issue. Groves influence snowpack runoff, soil stability, water quality, wildfire risk, tourism economies, and wildlife habitat. Shrug them off, and you're shrugging off pieces of your community's infrastructure.

What makes this harder to swallow is the disconnect between what's visible on the ground and what's debated in Washington. In Colorado, you don’t have to look hard to notice there are forests under stress. Yet at the same time, as reported in the NY Times, the federal government is in court over whether to downplay or even repeal the scientific finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health. Our forests broadcast their diagnosis in real time, while national policy still argues whether the illness exists.

Many of us tilt at advancing climate-policy windmills. Still, with the increased intensity of wildfires and their hazardous smoke blanketing the nation, it's clear that forest health and climate policy are intimately intertwined.

These aren't abstract ideas. On the state and local level, Colorado is already leading the charge:

1. Grazing management to protect new aspen shoots.
2. Prescribed fire to stimulate regeneration and reduce conifer competition.
3. Support for climate-resilience research and on-the-ground adaptation strategies.
4. Policies that treat forest health as infrastructure—not just scenery.

In Boulder, for example, efforts highlighted in the documentary Peaks to Prairie show how local leaders link land management with climate adaptation. These initiatives prove that innovation is possible!

Here's the hopeful part: aspens are among the most stubborn survivors on Earth. Each grove is a colony sprouting from an ancient root network that can outlive us all if given half a chance. They may be stressed, but they are also incredibly tenacious. With innovative management, science-informed policy, and a collective mindset that treats adaptation as urgent rather than optional, these trees—and we—still have a shot. Next time we admire an aspen grove, let's feel inspired, not sad. That's a fight worth taking up—even Don Quixote would approve.