The Wild Trees

In "The Wild Trees," Richard Preston transports the reader into the realm of the giant Redwood trees of Northern California. Some of these giants reach more than 300 feet into the sky. Up in the canopy among these massive, living behemoths there are entire ecosystems and unique species that flourish right there atop these majestic living monuments.

Preston accounts both his initial curiosity and how his quest was launched, as well as his adventures up to the top of these great trees in vivid detail. Not only does he paint wonderful word pictures, he educates and advocates for these increasingly rare living giants. There is adventure, science, environmental advocacy, powerful story-telling, and even intrigue all right within the pages of show more this excellent book. Highly recommended! show less

At some point reading this book I realized it was a story about the people who climb trees for a living and not a book about the ecosystem of tree canopies. I found this story fascinating and the writing excellent, but I can see why people who thought this was going to be a science book about trees might be impatient or disappointed. The book shines a light on what drives people to do this somewhat unappreciated and very dangerous work, and how a casual assumption can cause even scientists to overlook something that is (literally) right in front of them. That said, I would very much welcome a book that WAS an exploration of the tree canopy ecosystem, though it would obviously be a very different kind of book.

3.5***

The book is subtitled: A Story of Passion and Daring and that is the best description. It reminds me of Krakauer’s book Into the Wild in that Preston describes young men who are brilliant and singular in pursuing their chosen field of study (tree botany), but awkward and distant from most personal relationships.

Steve Sillett and Michael Taylor begin their studies completely independent of one another, but share the wonder and awe for the magnificent California redwoods and a determination to discover the world’s tallest tree. Along the way they discover entire ecosystems and new realms in biodiversity. Known among their peers in the field, they nevertheless shun the spotlight and are obsessively protective of the hidden show more groves where these giants live. That Preston gained their trust and wrote so eloquently about their quest (without revealing the details of the locations of these trees) is a testament to his skill and character as a journalist and writer.

He writes a nonfiction account that is fascinating and compelling. There were a few parts that dragged – mostly when Preston got involved in the story and outlined his own attempts (and that of his family) to learn tree-climbing techniques. Still, while I didn’t think this was as good as his earlier works (The Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer), I was entertained and interested from beginning to end. show less

I lived in a public housing project until I was eight years old. There were no trees in the project. When I was eight, my family moved to a free standing house on the south-west side of Chicago. The house was quite small, but it had at least 5 trees on the property. On my first day in the new house, I could hardly contain my joy at the prospect of climbing trees. Within a week or two, I had climbed the three smallest trees to the highest branches that would support my weight. The three trees may have been young birches because they had clean white bark and a ladder like formation of branches. I could shinny up any trunk I could get my arms around, and so I did not have to be able to reach the first branch to climb a tree.

After a couple show more of months, I was able to try the second largest tree on the property. It was probably a catalpa, judging by the cigar-shaped pods that grew on it. It was quite a bit larger than the other three, and its bark would shed onto the clothes of anyone who would climb it. Because the first branches were much higher than I could reach, I had to shinny up the trunk abut ten feet to find a comfortable resting place, by which time my clothes would be filthy from the bark. Once I reached the first branch, however, it was a fairly easy climb to other sturdy branches about 50 feet in the air, a point that was well above any of the surrounding roof tops. Since the terrain in Chicago is as flat as a pancake, it seemed that I could see forever from my perch.

The fifth tree was a huge old oak whose trunk was simply too wide for my eight year old arms to circumscribe, and so I was never able to climb that tree.

Having been defeated in my efforts to climb a mature oak that might have been 80 feet tall, imagine how impressed I was to learn that a small group of intrepid climbers had learned to scale 360 foot California redwoods and Douglas firs to the very top. Richard Preston’s Wild Trees is the story of a quirky collection of botanists, arborists, and amateur tree climbers who embarked on a quest to discover and climb the tallest trees in the world. The term and title of the book, wild tree, refers to a previously unclimbed tree.

The heroes and heroine of the story are all archetypical “granola” types one finds in rural California and Oregon. Except for the author, the people in the book appear to be more interested in trees than in other people. In fact, I too found myself more interested in learning about the trees and the techniques of climbing them than about the interactions of the human characters.

The trees themselves, however, are thoroughly interesting. They are the largest living things on earth. Well, maybe their cousins, the sequoias, are a bit more massive, but the redwoods are taller. They are also the oldest living things. Some may have been saplings when Plato was lecturing in the Academy.

Determining which tree is actually the tallest turns out to be easier said than done. One reason is that logging companies cut down the tallest trees in accessible areas. The tallest remaining trees are in truly inaccessible areas where there are no roads and which require long bushwhacking hikes to reach. Another problem is that the tops are usually not visible to anyone standing near them—you have to be quite a distance away to see which tree rises above its neighbors.

The redwoods have a remarkable structure. The tallest ones have no significant branches (i.e., sturdy enough to hold a climber) below 100+ feet above the ground. But once you reach those branches, many of them are larger than mature oak trees. Redwoods often form multiple trunks at great heights. In fact, full grown trees of different species have been found sprouting from redwood trunks high above the ground. Those large branches or other trees can be extremely dangerous because they sometimes fall or are broken off by lightening. Think of the impact an 80+ foot long, multi-ton branch makes when it hits the ground after falling 150 or 200 feet!

Redwoods are remarkably resistant to fire. Even when they burn, their remains provide very fertile space for new growth.

The first climbers into the canopy (the collection of high branches) found a previously undiscovered mini ecosystem of its own. It is home to many forms of lichen and smaller plants as well as some species of animals found nowhere else. The climbers encountered flying squirrels that had no fear of humans, never having encountered them. The canopies can be so thick and maze-like that the climbers occasionally had difficulty finding one another when they were in the same tree at about the same elevation. Old trees usually have substantial amounts of dead matter and often have large hollow spaces, which add to the perils faced by climbers.

The climbers had to develop new techniques and new equipment for their activities. They learned to shoot an arrow tied to a climbing rope over a large stable branch in order to obtain purchase for the climb. Other techniques are difficult to describe — I had trouble envisioning several procedures and tactics the author used. In fact, the author himself referred the reader to several Youtube posts where the methods were demonstrated.

This book opened up an exotic and fascinating world I didn’t even know existed. If I were much younger, I’d be tempted try my luck in the trees.

Rating: 4.5/5 for description of the trees and climbing technique and equipment.

2/5 for the interpersonal interactions of the characters.

(JAB) show less

I thought this book VERY choppy and hard to follow then I noticed that my iPod was shuffling things out of order. Bah. So I corrected it and things went smoother, but it still skipped around a lot and could have been better organized. The edition I listened to was an abridgement, so maybe that had an effect. It was a loaner that I ripped to the computer, so what the hell.

That being said, I learned a lot. Not only that there is a specialized technique to climbing really big trees complete with its own rules and equipment. There are also people who dedicate their lives to finding the largest tree they can find. Apparently this is not as easy as walking in the woods. Redwood forests are almost impenetrable with brush and treefall and show more it’s a lot of work to find these mega-groves. But the rewards sound so spectacular. I was enchanted with the descriptions of being in the canopy. It’s a highly intricate, interconnected world of many species adapting to the unique structure of the life of trees. It sounded wondrous and magical and a bit scary. Scary also that they are disappearing. Heartbreaking actually. I’ve always been a sucker for trees. I learned a lot and realize that others love them, too.

I was not so enchanted by the character of Steve Sillett. He sounds like an egotistical jerk with very little understanding of how the real world works and a callous disregard for people. Practically he seems helpless and destitute of common sense. Tree-wise he’s brilliant and luckily he’s discovered a way to make it pay. Otherwise I can easily see him as a disillusioned college professor grinding out his existence in some backwater school, desperately looking for publication and affirmation. A right smug little prick.

Overall, Preston does a pretty good job of description and characterization. The scene portraying a climber’s plummet to the earth from about 80 feet up was very visceral. He could use some organizational help and also needs to shy away from some of the more sensational language he uses. He strays into tabloid a bit too easily. show less

A quick read, but vividly told. The first tale of Steve Sillett and Marwood Harriss freeclimbing a redwood to the top made my tummy clench in a vicarious fear of heights. Preston is particularly good at making the experience of climbing immediate and real. He also pulls together the various people who have interacted with these trees and tells their stories. But central to the book is the place of these millennium-old trees. He notes that the ecology of the canopy is one of great biodiversity, but one that becomes more diverse as the whole grove ages, and thus a tree of only 500 years hasn't had a chance to accumulate the full complement of lichens, and ferns, and even epiphytic bushes and trees that a true old-growth forest show more accumulates. This is a window on time as much as the volume of previously unexplored habitat. But the stories of leaping from tree to tree are still scary. Do you see the two climbers pictured on the cover? I didn't for weeks. show less

Very interesting subjects (both human and botanical). But for a writer of Preston's caliber, this is oddly choppy in its execution.