Ten years in the making, the book has been released on the world (or at least from Finland to Japan and many places in between in North America). The pre-sale response was amazing and I appreciate everyone who helped support this labor of love by ordering the book. It is currently available in these bookstores with distribution soon reaching Crater Lake National Park as well as the Redwood Parks. I'm working on getting it into the Shasta-Redding area and the Rogue Valley as well.

Work occasioned a trip to southern California which, of course, also required me to spend some time with a few regionally endemic conifers. I had never visited the Torrey pine or Cuyamaca cypress, so in planning the trip to Palm Springs for a conference, Allison and I took a few extra days—looping south toward the Mexican border—to see North America's rarest pine and cypress.

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Torry Pine (Pinus torreyana)

Rarity is a new endeavor for the Torrey pine. Though it is the current record-holder for "rarest North American pine" it has not always been that way. It is an ancient pine, whose lineage extends back as far as the Oligocene or Miocene with a range that extended as far north as Oregon (Kral 1993). In the Pleistocene, the species probably ranged throughout the coastal basins of Southern California but became restricted to coastal San Diego County and Santa Rosa Island over the last 12,000 years or so, during Holocene warming (Waters and Schaal 1991). Its closest extant relative is probably the Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri).


Charismatic specimens are sculpted by the pervasive wind, fed by moist coastal fog, and nourished by the sandstone on which they root.
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Field Notes from Plant Explorations has never relayed news; but I think this news is more than blog-worthy for many reasons. The first is that this is an uplifting story about the wild in nature being wild. This wolf has traveled hundreds of miles from his 'homeland' crossing roads, ranches, wilderness and now political borders—and he has done it alone. More importantly, because of the breadth of urban and rural sprawl, people are playing a role in allowing this adventurous soul room to roam. We as a culture are, on a level I don't think we yet understand, developing new found compassion for the previously demonized big-bad-wolf. I think we are learning that wild is important and if we can share 'our' world—without some hollywoodized fear of being eaten—then the world might be a better place. Finally, I think this wakens the primordial howl deep in our souls. Human and dog have evolved together—from wolf origins—for over ten thousand years. Some time ago our ancestors sat around an idealized campfire munching on caribou meat sharing some of the scraps with those at the edge of the fire's glow, whose luminous tapetum lucidum suggested a longing for companionship. While this should ultimately not be about us in some way it needs to be for OR7, and others, to be allowed to wander again.

A primordial relationship has returned to the Klamath Mountains. I can only dream OR7 will be joined by a few friends, howl with joy at the vast wilderness, and dance with the elk for a long time to come. May this visit be more than fleeting...


A gray wolf (not OR7) Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth-USFWS.

• Read more from the DFG news blog
• OR7's path through 1/11/2012

Why, climb Mount Hilton in the Trinity Alps of course.

As I approached the trailhead the car's outdoor thermometer read 28^oF and, with the windows down, the iPod shuffled Rapper's Delight for my auditory indulgence. I pulled into the large parking lot at Canyon Creek as the lone (semi-domesticated) representative of the human race. Donning hat and gloves, I hoisted my pack and climbed toward what I hoped would be a world-class penthouse suite. With Sugar Hill Gang resonating in my head—as other driftless tunes have on previous trips—the lyrics seemed preposterously apropos as I progressed toward the named summit (hotel, motel, Mount Hilton...). What five-star resort could possibly compare to a perch on glacially polished granite—surrounded by sky, stars, and wilderness—with a forecast of continued high pressure and a hard freeze? None in my mind.


A five-star morning sunrise high in the Trinity Alps Wilderness....

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After walking along the Smith River on the South Kelsey Trail, the Summit Valley Trail climbs to the high country. Here I got a view to the Siskiyou Crest through a multitude of conifers, with the Smith River far below.
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In the late 1960's, after arriving at Humboldt State University as a new professor, John O. Sawyer received a letter in the mail from G. Ledyard Stebbins. Stebbins, widely regarded as one of America's leading evolutionary biologists but also a lover of rare plants, suggested to John that he needed to visit a remote place in the Klamath Mountains known as Blake's Fork. Here, he said, John might help verify a report for one of California's rarest conifers—the Engelmann spruce. Stebbins hoped John could record his findings in a new database called the Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California organized by the California Native Plant Society. With conifers calling, John and his friend and co-worker Dale Thornburgh went on a journey that would change our understanding of conifer distributions, plant associations, and wilderness in California.


The heart of the Russian Wilderness and the Miracle Mile, with Russian Peak to the far left. This spiney ridge separates Sugar Creek (left) from Duck Creek (right).

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Conifers possess highly derived adaptations that allow them to flourish on continental land masses north and south of the 45th parallel—to the arctic tree line. They also grow in similar regions with decreasing latitude, like the various cordilleras of western North America. Though they comprise less than 1% of all plant species (~630), they define 30% of the forests on Earth. In order to survive in colder climates conifers must be able ...

The alpine tundra of the Pasayten Wilderness is characterized by small hummocks decorated with diminutive heaths and grasses with the much taller conifers surviving on only the fringes of this landscape.

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As Allison and I began to map our route through the Cascades for our summer vacation I proposed that we visit Mount Saint Helens. Allison quickly agreed but jokingly asked what conifers were there that I wanted to see—I relented that I wanted to familiarize myself with noble fir (Abies procera) outside of California and this was a place recommended by Chris Earle on his epic website. What we found in the Goat Marsh ...


The Goat Marsh Research Natural Area was identified for its mountain wetland communities, xeric lodgepole pine forests, and noble fir forests associated with an active Cascade volcano.

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Box Camp Mountain | Marble Mountain Wilderness

Ecological amplitude is the range of habitats, often dependent on and defined by elevation, within which a certain species has the ability to survive. In the Klamath Mountains there are two species of pines that define the highest elevations—growing at or near the summits of peaks from ~7500' to 9000' (The Klamath Mountains get no higher). Foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) and whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) inhabit our sky islands where they are the crowning jewels of this coniferous wonderland.
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Windswept foxtails dot the ridge of Box Camp Mountain.

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