AFTER THE SUMMER FIRES, TOURISM STILL FLICKERS IN THE WEST.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

Ashes have been sifted, soot smudges wiped up ... and visitors have been pointed in the direction of views that are still lush and lovely.

Tourism sites anxiously weathered wildfires that raged throughout the West this past summer - while also beating back a firestorm of misinformation about what was and wasn't standing when the smoke cleared.

Some locations emerged unscathed. Some bear the scars of fiery destruction. All are hopeful of enticing visitors back in the coming months, even to terrain that has been drastically altered.

``The views and vistas have certainly changed here,'' said Tessy Shirakawa, chief of interpretation at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. ``In some areas, there is a completely blackened landscape with skeletons of trees standing there. And the pinyon-juniper forest takes quite a long time to regenerate.''

Mesa Verde was one of the hardest-hit tourist areas. The Long Mesa fire broke out in the park at the end of July, when lightning struck a forest that was already gasping in the drought that gripped the Rockies this year.

The blaze was knocked down in just a few days, and it only burned 2,600 acres (small compared to some of the other infernos in the West), but it forced the evacuation of 2,000 visitors and park employees, destroyed three historic buildings and some support facilities on Chapin Mesa, and wiped out trees that were hundreds of years old.

The ancient native cliff dwellings for which Mesa Verde is known were saved, although Shirakawa said the water used in firefighting did cause some discoloration of the porous sandstone in one structure.

A little farther east, the Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad suspended service for a 23-day period in early summer, but not because flames from the Missionary Ridge fire in the San Juan National Forest were licking at the rails. Rather, said spokeswoman Mary Jo Rakowski, the tourist rail line was concerned that sparks emitted by its coal-fired steam locomotives might ignite more fires.

Shorter trips were scheduled using diesel locomotives, although prospective customers were warned that thick smoke from the wildfire was hanging over Durango, putting people with respiratory problems at risk.

``The town did not go up in smoke, and the train is still running,'' said Rakowski, aware that news reports from Colorado presented images of towering flames and National Guard personnel turning back travelers at closed national forests.

The concern of travelers affected some popular tourist areas that were under no threat of fire. Sequoia National Park, for example, has the misfortune of sharing the same name as Sequoia National Forest, which lies to the south in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

When the McNally fire broke out in the national forest north of Lake Isabella, a national TV news network inaccurately reported that it was raging in the national park and threatening ancient groves, said park spokeswoman Kris Fister. In fact, the closest the fire got to the park's southern boundary was six miles, and it was fully 60 air miles from the park's signature Gen. Sherman Tree and other old-growth sequoias.

``There was a great deal of confusion. Still is,'' said Fister. ``We fielded a lot of questions during the fire: Could they come up here? Was it safe? Were the sequoias OK? Even now, an e-mail will pop up asking if everything is OK.''

It's a common lament heard throughout the West.

Kristen Jarnagin of the Arizona Office of Tourism cited the Rodeo- Chediski blaze, a convergence of two fires northeast of Phoenix that was the worst in state history, destroying 469,000 acres and 467 homes.

``Eastern visitors hear 450,000 acres and assume the whole state is on fire,'' Jarnagin said. ``They don't understand the massive acreage we have out here in the West.'' (That destruction, in fact, represented less than 1 percent of Arizona's total area.)

The scenic drives of highways 260 and 60 near the east-central Arizona towns of Show Low and Heber are said to be little affected. Sunrise Ski Park on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation was untouched and is preparing for winter.

But throughout the West, travelers who venture out in the coming months should brace for an altered landscape.

Firefighters battling the Hayman blaze in Colorado's Pike National Forest southwest of Denver were able to save the Lost Valley Ranch near Deckers, for example, but great patches of area around it were ravaged.

``When people are in their cabins, in the dining room, it's not in their face,'' said Bob Foster, owner of the dude ranch. ``When you ride out (on a horseback excursion), you're going to see some burned areas.

``Where you notice it is at the viewpoints. People like to go to high places and look out over that forest. On some of our vistas, you can see to Pikes Peak. All you could see was forest. Now all you're going to see is burned forest. About a million ponderosa pines were lost in this fire. The forest is never going to be the same.''

In many regions of the West, fire danger has dropped considerably since the summer. In southern Colorado, cooler, wetter days and high nighttime humidity have resulted in national forests being reopened to picnicking, hiking and camping. Many have even lifted campfire prohibitions.

Much of the West still remains perilously dry, however - notably Southern California, northern Colorado, parts of Oregon - and forest restrictions or outright closures are in effect. Close to home, for example, the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains remains closed to visitor activity. Less extensive restrictions are in effect for the San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests.

Before embarking on any woodsy excursion, it's advisable to get specifics on a particular national forest at the Forest Service's Web site: www.fs.fed.us.

Gauging the effect of the fires on tourism this year - and predicting what lies ahead - is difficult, officials said. A slight slump was reported by the Colorado Springs visitors' bureau, for example, but it couldn't determine if the economic downturn in the United States and the terrorism fears of foreign travelers were equal contributors.

Ashland, Ore., home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, was not threatened by fire despite being wedged between the ravenous Biscuit and Tiller blazes in southern Oregon. But there was a lot of smoke in the area, and the festival experienced a noticeable slowdown in ticket sales in late August and early September, according to spokeswoman Amy Richard. Also, she said, a number of ticket-holders elected to stay home, making credit-card exchanges for next year's festival.

Most tourist sites are carrying on with indomitable pride, hoping for an outbreak of greenery - both tree sprouts and dollar bills - when the next tourism season arrives in the spring.

``There's still a lot to see, a lot to do,'' said Shirakawa of Mesa Verde National Park. Tours of cliff dwellings are being conducted on the usual fall schedule.

And at the Lost Valley Ranch, Foster is guiding his horseback rides through a mosaic of unburned forest to the north of his spread.

``People are learning that fires are a part of what we live with and deal with here. It's like hurricanes on the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California,'' said Foster, who was raised in South Pasadena.

``If you want it (a vacation environment) under glass, go to Disneyland.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Smoke from the steam locomotive of the Durango/Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad competes with the plume of Colorado's Missionary Ridge fire in late June. The train suspended operations for 23 days this past summer.

Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

(2) At Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, visitors will find a pinyon- juniper forest reduced to blackened sticks by the Long Mesa fire of late July.

National Park Service