What is it about coastal redwoods that would inspire people to risk their lives to be near them? For starters, this type of redwood is located in only a few areas, but those are nearly inaccessible to all but the most dedicated bushwhackers. It is impossible to see the trees in their entirety, so a combination of imagination and rigorous measurement is required to assess their true size. They support an abundance of flora and fauna (even plankton) in an unexpected place. And they are the largest living things in the world. (OK, there’s a honey mushroom fungus in Oregon that is technically bigger, but no one’s organizing trips to see it…) But what kind of oddballs, misfits, and romantics would embark on arduous trips to find and study these giant trees?
For Steve Sillett, it started as a rebellious and incredibly dumb free climb that uncovered a new world. For Michael Taylor, a childhood trip introduced him to the trees, which became first a hobby, then an obsession. Marie Antoine’s risk-taking youth evolved into a desire to study rare plants found in the canopies of these tall trees. Arborists Scott Altenhoff and Kevin Hillery took on the job of teaching ‘skywalking’ to the climbers, equipping them to ascend the trees then move among the branches in a kind of ballet. These, and the other people in the tiny community of canopy scientists, learned by the seat of their climbing saddles. All of them bring a love of the trees, incredible athletic ability, and a desire to learn to their vocation.
Their experiences were not without cost. Relationships suffered, job opportunities were set aside, expensive equipment purchased by sacrificing necessities. The searchers only looked in places deemed inaccessible by logging companies, fighting through tangled bushes and poison oak in often fruitless searches. Michael Taylor’s fear of heights tortured him even as he told other climbers where to find bigger trees. The dangers inherent in climbing were amplified by inattention and possibly self-destructive impulses. These stories provide motion and drama while clearly keeping the giant trees at the center of the book.
The trees themselves? If you have ever visited Muir Woods National Monument in California, you may have seen a popular tourist attraction – the coastal redwood measuring 285 feet tall, or about the height of the United States Capitol Building. A member of this community discovered the tallest tree in the world, called Stratosphere Giant. It stands 370 feet tall (as high as a 35 story building) and is estimated to be 2,000 years old. An incredible series of drawings in the book depicts a small segment of a tree called Iluvatar, which has 220 trunks growing from its main trunk in an astonishing maze that dwarfs the humans. As both living organisms and habitats, these trees are incredibly complex, perhaps beyond our understanding.
In Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee writes about the philosophical divide between conservationists who want to maintain pristine wilderness and land managers who say everyone should have recreational access to those wild places. The people Richard Preston writes about have made that decision for themselves. To avoid divulging locations of the trees, the climbers and scientists go to great lengths, even approaching from different directions so they don’t leave trails. For me, it is enough to know that the trees are there and that people who respect and love them are serving as their stewards – I don’t need to see them to understand their value. Long may they stand.
I would have never picked Wild Trees off the shelf without someone else suggesting it to me (*waves* to book group members!), but I am very glad to have read it. I thought it was a quick read, and although it is a nonfiction book, I think it reads more like fiction. I enjoy fantasy and science fiction, so I didn’t expect a book about tree climbing to be interesting at all. But, I was surprised to find myself not wanting to put the book down! Learning about things found in the treetops (as in, entire ecosystems not visible by humans from the ground) was absolutely fascinating!
I somewhat agree with the last reply, that the book has a slight feel of fiction, although it’s a fine bit of reading.
Maybe because Preston uses words to squeeze something already magnificent, for all it’s worth.
96% at least, the book appears technically factual.
A few parts of the book are misleading, and you would have to visit the undisclosed groves yourself, to know what I’m talking about. The misleading sections almost all pertain to the location of the groves. Either click the URL near my name, or visit this page:
http://www.mdvaden.com/grove_of_titans.shtml
Those are several of the trees.
My only dissappointment with the book was the lack of images – so the page takes care of that.
But as for reading, I found it good enough to read twice already.
Mario,
These are some incredible images – thanks for sharing them. You’re right that the limited list of people who know the locations of these incredible living monuments is like a secret club; I don’t mind if it stays that way. I envision a stream of plastic cups and fast food bags along a log path from the parking lot, and signs pointing to ‘The World’s Tallest Tree’ if word gets out. Your effort to get there, and the efforts of people doing good science at the locations, is sufficient for me.
Thanks for providing us these images.
Last night I attended a discussion and book-signing in my neighbourhood by a successful crime thriller writer. He said that fiction was about emotion; his aim being to show how people in the situations he described would feel. Non-fiction on the other hand was just facts.
I put it to him that books of facts were a subsection of non-fiction writing. they are the handbooks for professionals ( as a botanist, I used to write such books for agriculturalists, doctors and many more) or students (textbooks). Other than these, non-fiction books are written with and about passion and emotion for their subject. Akin, in fact, to creative fiction writing.
And the book in my mind was the one I picked up on holiday as something to pass the 12-hour return journey, never guessing from the title that I would be glued to it and hardly put it down until I finished it. Wild Trees is too modest. This is a rare and amazing glimpse into the world we inherit, its beauty and the way it still pulls us to it.
I’m a botanist and I don’t do heights. Six feet above the ground to pick apples in my trees is as far as I climb. But I wander around swamps and mountainsides, drawn to the complexity and beauty of their mosses, the miniature plants and the teeming life of insects. there is something calling to our deep nature about discovery and detection in a bog or a mountain cliff, together with the satisfaction of complexity and yet simplicity of the wild earth. This book allows us to share one example. It doesn’t matter that only a handful of people can possibly experience 370 ft trees: it inspires us to go to wild places, feel them and love them.
In libraryland, we’ve started calling this type of writing “narrative nonfiction”, since it does have a different set of aims. While there are some great statements about the difference between fiction and nonfiction (my favorite being “Nonfiction gives answers, fiction asks the questions” – wish I had a citation), I find more and more that skilled writers are able to find the drama and storytelling possibilities in factual books. Writers like John McPhee, Tracy Kidder, Thomas Cahill, Mark Kurlansky, and Sue Hubbell to mention a very few, have taken their factual presentations and breathed life into them. All of them make us take a second look at our world and our assumptions, and give free rein to the wild curiosity that ought to be our birthright. Kudos to you for arguing your side – I hope the speaker and the rest of the audience got something to think about that night.
[...] Preston, whose best books are non-fiction books about diseases and science, try The Hot Zone or Wild Trees. I think this was an inspired combination. The book has Michael Crichton’s thrilling pace and [...]
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