1829. One hundred and six years old. Another fire scar.

1833. One hundred and ten years old. Another fire scar.

1841. One hundred and eighteen years old. Another fire scar.

1852. One hundred and twenty-nine years old.  A different sort of people entered the valley for the first time, bearded men carrying pans, picks, and guns.  The strange metallic sounds they made kept the squirrel that nested high in the pine in a constant state of noisy outrage, until she was shot.  The men did not find what they were looking for, and by the end of the summer they were gone.

1854. One hundred and thirty-one years old.  One night, on silent feet, three women and eight children passed up the trail toward the mountains.  They were the last Dakubetede people ever to walk the path along Pine Creek. 

1855. One hundred and thirty-two years old.  A group of huge, heavy-footed cattle found their way into the valley, the first to graze its rich bunchgrass.  They remained until the late autumn.  When they left, many of the mounds of bunchgrass were cropped to the ground and the slopes were littered with great desiccated slabs of dung.

1862. One hundred and thirty-nine years old. Another fire scar.

1866. One hundred and forty-three years old.  Another new creature passed beneath the shadow of the pine.  A flock of nearly 100 sheep was driven by on the trail toward the high meadows.  In that autumn and many afterward, the creek ran brown and its deep pools filled with gravel washed down from high above.

1870. One hundred and forty-seven years old.  Fires burned hot all summer, as miners throughout the mountains burned away plant cover to expose the bedrock to their view.  In some valleys, even old trees died when the flames managed to spread into their crowns.  The open forest of Pine Creek offered no such opportunity, and the pine received only a fire scar.