Timber Image vs. Reality

One of the things I commonly tell people is that the main reason that people really abhor clearcutting in our nations forests is because it's ugly, not because it's environmentally unsound. You can argue that all you want, but most of the current restrictions on clearcutting prevent mass soil erosion and habitat degradation.
We can all agree that clearcuts, however, don't look as pretty as unbroken tracts of forested land. However, many times people just don't understand what they are even looking at. Take this clearing for instance.

Appearances can be deceiving as well. When one crosses the Sexton Summit and drops into the Rogue Valley from the north, the mountains on the left (east) look rather bald as if they'd been logged. Not so.

Turns out that one of the mountains was burned in a fire, and is currently re-planted, and the other, named Red Mountain, has too much iron (thus the red soil) and magnesium and not enough other minerals to support trees.

The serpentine soils of Red Mountain fool many people into thinking it was logged. The sparsely vegetated mountain doesn't make the prettiest view several miles off my back porch, but it's natural...except for the interstate on its flank. The Kalmiopsis Wilderness has lots of serpentine soils.