There was snow above them, but it either soaked down through the strata, or the drainage from it descended on the other side of the divide.

It was also, though not quite summer yet, unusually hot weather, and the season had been exceptionally dry, and they had contented themselves for a week with the little muddy fluid they scraped up here and there from oozy pools that were lined with pine needles and rotting leaves, when they came to a big brulee.
It filled a deep valley that was hemmed in by almost precipitous crags, and though charred logs and branches lay here and there, most of the burned forest was still standing.

As a matter of fact, a fire in this region very seldom brings the trees down.

It merely strips them.

As the men pushed wearily on, endless ranks of blackened trunks moved steadily back before them.