Forest Fire!
The forest between Black Rock Mountain (not to be confused with Black Rock Forest's Black Rock Mountain, which is just north of this area. I am not sure why there are two Black Rock Mountains so close to each other...) and Island Pond had experienced a forest fire recently. It must have been a hot one because many large logs had burned.
There were some areas where many trees were down and charred. The landscape was very black.
The top of Bald Rocks was a little balder than it had been I am sure. Several charred logs and...
...some younger trees that could not take the fire and turned brown.
The roads through the woods worked as fire breaks in some spots, notice the leaves on the left and no leaves on the right! The right hand side was all burned off.
In some places the fire burned away all of the leaves and the top 3-4 inches (10-15 cm) of organic soil! This exposed the network of roots beneath the surface. The brown strip through the middle of this photo is the trail! The compaction of the soil caused by hikers must have prevented this part from burning.
As we were going down the last hill of our hike, Sunday afternoon, I saw this. Someone had used a dry log to put out their cigarette...

We are experiencing a sever drought and it does not take much to get a fire started...