My
favorite tree
Photography
by Chris Schiller
Click on thumbnails for a larger view
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Flourishing in places
where other trees cannot take root. Junipers
find their niche,
literally, in the cracks at the edges and peaks of
granite domes and
cliffs.
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In places in the
Carson River drainage a convergence of soil and slope and water
make for a playground
of giants. Gentle Jeffry Pines just look on at their unabashed and
flamboyantly
gyrating arboreal
neighbors. The Junipers there are a cross of Medusa and Michael Jordan.
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The grain of the tree, naked and clothed.
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Animals, animals
into minerals, and vegetables amongst the minerals.
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I've always wanted
to visit the Sweetwaters. The explorer Fremont
passed through these
mountains in 1844 on his way
to a crossing of
the High Sierra. He dragged a small cannon thousands
of miles around
the American frontier and finally abandoned it
somewhere in these
mountains. It has never been found.
Fremont’s report,
posted Jan. 29, 1844, “... We ascended a very steep hill, which
proved afterwards
the last and fatal obstacle to our little howitzer, which was
finally abandoned
at this place.”
From a distance,
the Sweetwaters look dry and forbidding. However, deep in its canyons
are thick forests
of pine and aspen, with flowing creeks crowded by willows.
Me photographing
in the high Sweetwaters.