No doubt about it, Ashland has some pretty cool trees. Just about every tree here in town has one thing in common. They are ALL influenced by some type of human activity, such as being cared for by an arborist for example. All the trees in town are rather “pedestrian” to my eyes. Not a bad thing mind you, I enjoy my work! But for truly magical trees, you must gas up your rig, pack a lunch, and hit the road…
Within an hour more or less is where the magic happens.
At about 5000 feet things start to drastically change. The higher you go from there, the more magical it gets… All the trees there have one thing in common as well.
They have NEVER been cultured by human touch. They are sculpted by their environment and accompanying wildlife. Trees seemingly growing out of solid rock, trees growing out of other trees, trees that look like they were planted upside down or sideways, trees that live their life buried under frozen snow for 7 or 8 months out of the year, just plain magic, if you ask me. Town trees have it pretty damn good compared to what I refer to as “wild” trees. Our 2 main mountain ranges closest to us are the Cascades and Siskiyous and while treacherous during winter for travel by auto, during summer are easily doable.
I have recently seen trees that defy all logic and can’t for the life of me imagine how they survived without some kind of miracle. A run of the mill street tree wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance up there… I look at a twisted, gnarly wind blasted ancient tree and try to imagine all the hellishly brutal stormy nights it must have experienced in the last couple of hundreds of years just to stay alive.
They are, simply, magical. Never planted. Never watered. Never pruned. Never staked. Never touched. Hell, maybe never even seen by a human. Doing just fine. Kinda’ makes you wonder…
I get a kick out of the fact that no one can say they own them, they own themselves…
You have a couple of months left to see some magical trees before winter slams into us like a train into a smart car soooo.
You might just throw a sleeping bag in as well and spend the night with a magical tree, they seem to enjoy that.
When you get back from your tour, you will probably look at all the pedestrian trees a little differently as well…
As always, plant high and often!
