Heavy logging in these mountains in the Twenties. Many trees were felled and left to checker into soft, rotten punk.

One enormous, old-growth Ponderosa had been spared the clear-cut because its trunk had split and split and split again, so it wouldn’t make straight lumber—perhaps a genetic trait?  A beautiful and noble tree. I laid my face against it. It felt a living being, as though I could sense the subtle movement of xylem and phloem.

Maybe I could.