Aspen trees, with their quivering, delicate foliage and the warm glow of color they spread across the high country of the Rocky Mountains this time of year, have an emotional appeal that their stolid, prickly evergreen cousins do not. So tree lovers and scientists alike felt the impact when the aspen in the West started dying around 2004 — withering away in a broad band from here in southwest Colorado through the mountains of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico and into Wyoming.
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