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The Wild Trees Richard Preston The Wild Trees is a true story of high adventure. Much of it takes place in the upper reaches of the world's tallest trees, where Stephen Sillett (now Fisher Professor of Redwood Forest Ecology at Humboldt State University) and a supporting cast that includes his wife explore a world that was largely unknown before his arrival. It's hard to say what is more remarkable - the strange things they find hundreds of feet off the ground, or the effort and tolerance for danger required to get there.Though there is a great deal of natural history in this book, much of the volume is given over to the personal stories of the principals and their extremely focused, even obsessive pursuit of tall trees. They endure much just finding those trees, scrambling for hours through thick undergrowth and clambering over the fallen trunks of enormous trees that lie scattered about like so many pick-up sticks. Most of this activity is undertaken in areas that few if any people have ever explored or even accurately mapped, areas so difficult to get to that even the most voracious loggers weren't able to find them. Finding a suitable candidate is just the beginning. Climbing it is another matter entirely. Most of these trees have no dependable branches less than one or two hundred feet above the ground. For the most part, Sillett and company start out by using a crossbow to fire arrows that trail thin lines over high branches - a process that can involve numerous attempts before success. Climbers then attach ropes to the lines and pull them over the branch before heading up using a variety of highly specialized and often self-designed gear. Preston does an effective job of describing all of this in reasonably non-technical terms, and the descriptions of some of the aerial maneuvering high above the ground made this heights-averse reviewer somewhat uncomfortable. Not everyone returns unscathed. Once explored, the upper reaches of coastal redwoods (for example) prove remarkably complex. Sometimes a tree loses its top and sprouts a virtual forest of secondary trunks, some of which dwarf trees found in the east. Other species of plants sprout in tiny gardens, rooted in soil that has built up from hundreds of years of aerial deposition, rotted wood, or the accumulated compost of fallen needles. The hollow shafts of broken trunks form caves or even water reservoirs of a sort, producing seeps and springs at their bases. The overall effect is to describe a place that seems a bit otherworldly which, in a sense, it is. An engrossing read. Mike Habeck The Wild Trees by Richard Preston Random House 294pp. |
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