What is happening with this tree?

Trying to figure out what is going on with this tree.  We have a couple others like it but maybe 100 yards away.

Any thoughts?

That is odd. Maybe a fungus? Does it go all the way around the tree?

The photo shows a branch rubbing against the tree. Perhaps the branch is blowing in the wind, and rubbing the lichens off the trunk?

After looking closely at your photos, I think it is both wind rub knocking the moss off and it appears that there are two different fungi (one white and one pinkish in color).
Some times fungi live in conjunction with mosses and if the moss is rubbed or knocked off the fungi become visible.
The white areas on that "spot" of bark would be one of those fungi species. The pinkish hue in one area would be a second species of fungi, over time it should become thicker if it isn't just a color anomaly of the white fungus or an optical effect from the camera.
If you are concerned for the health of the tree, take a pocket knife and shave one rise of bark so you can look at the back side of your shaving, that will show you if the fungus is going deeper into the bark.

Normally this sort of fungus is not a big health issue for a tree, it is more like lichen or moss growing in the bark.

Redhawk

I’ll try looking at the bark as see how it looks.  Hoping to save them...we are clearing trees strategically and making decisions on what to cut down, trying to give more space to good trees and cut down any that are dead or diseased or a weaker tree near a better tree.

It looks like something has killed the moss growing on the bark cork layer, and maybe something has mechanically caused some premature exfoliation of the cork layer in some areas.. Neither of those two things are issues, as long as the cambium layer hasn't been injured or damaged in any way. Looking at the tree, I wonder if there is some type of canker, chemical, or heat damaged that may have in some way injured the cambium. If you want to do some exploratory surgery. Use a sterile instrument, I personally recomend isopropyl alcohol to sterilize the instrament; then you can carefully scratch the bark like a small vertical incision, to see if the cambium layer is healthy. You can use a thin hand saw, or even a knife, just keep the incision as small as possible. You'll need to get through the thick cork layer and down at least to the canbium cork layer. If the cambium layer is healthy, the tissue will look good, and start to close up first thing in spring when the tree starts growing. Just remember that you don't need to go completely through the canbium layer to examine it, just expose it. Keeping the incision small will let the tree close the wond quickly, incase that miniscule boundary gets crossed, and the sap wood is exposed. As a Professional Arborist, that's my best 2 cents.

Hope that helps.