The Boreal Forest

Trees light up my world. Here in Alaska I’m visiting the relatives of the dwarf conifers in our front yard. I admire what the trees do: keep growing until they die and feed the next generation. The witches’ broom, that’s that cluster of tiny branches growing herky-jerky on the pole of Alaskan spruce, is a response to fungal infection.

Here is an irresistibly callipygian spruce burl:

A nursery tree reminds me that new life comes from dead trees.

There is an enchanting combination of rock and shrub that makes my heart beat faster.

I noticed the lakes named 1, 2, and 3. The trail is really new, like the other recent Denali NP trails. And there are so many unnamed lakes and ponds. JG thinks the NPS is waiting for a benefactor to name the lakes after, the way Oracle Park is the home of the SF Giants. I think it’s interesting to be in a place with unnamed water features.

Maybe when I’m old I’ll enjoy a nice sightseeing bus trip, the way my mother used to. But today I’m getting up early to go out in the woods with my boots and my daypack. I’ll listen for birds as I smell the catmint and the geranium, rejoice over every creek crossing — water features! —, giggle when I mistake my spouse’s sonorous eructation for a bullfrog’s call, admire the shapely dead or living tree trunks, watch the clouds for approaching T-storms, and feel most expansive, most enriched, and most alive.