ESTES PARK, Colo. — Throughout the 4.2 mile Beaver Mountain Loop at Rocky Mountain National Park, hikers wind between charred pines jutting out of the verdant, flowery hillside.
This singed timber is evidence of the East Troublesome Fire, which razed nearly 200,000 acres of land in 2020.
Adam Auerbach, a former AmeriCorps worker and former Colorado Parks and Wildlife educator, led a group of about 20 outdoor enthusiasts through this recovering landscape as part of an “advocacy hike” — he also called it a “resistance hike” — he formed in protest of the Trump administration’s series of federal funding cuts targeting national parks and public lands…