MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Winter 2019

WINTER 2019 ML BLUE 85 genome to contain some 20,000 genes, while a poplar tree has 45,000. What does it mean when the complexity of the human brain is governed by fewer genes than a block of wood? Perhaps only that when it comes to DNA, wisdom, stoicism and vigilance are more hard-won. For snowriders, trees are shelter in the storm; for the snow that finds its way into them, they are a filter and preservative, minimizing the effects of wind and sun. Natural microclimates help: a mountain that spends a lot of quality time in the cloud deck, its peak perpetually shrouded, tends to pull down significantly more snow than neighboring peaks. Such places are rare, but where found, it’s the soft turns beneath the trees that rule the mountain’s personality. In British Columbia, where I now live, I particularly love skiing the trees, as well as the myriad forms they take—from tiny, hunched snowghosts to towering arrows of improbable snowy symmetry. I used to view these sentinels as living things that had simply stalled out for a while from daily existence, their weighted encasement a measure of the force of winter—as in the old Lewis Carrol quote: I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” For many years I skied through these alabaster guards, paying little attention to what I assumed was a silent plight. But a few years ago, some reading on tree biology caused me to come away with a different impression. Their statuesque nature, it turns out, is less a reflection of current weather than hundreds of millions of years of evolution and the selective powers of numerous ice ages. You see, the west coast’s alpine firs and pines and spruce and cedar—even mighty redwoods and sequoia—are snow trees , exquisitely evolved in form and function to deal with and make use of the white stuff. When there’s a heavy load, their apical symmetry sheds just enough to allow the branches to bend but not break; in super cold weather they often hold enough snow to protect buds and shoots; and melting snow from a tree’s branches drips in a close enough circle to feed its roots, which require a steady moisture supply over winter. Indeed the entire arc of a snow tree’s spring, summer and fall existence is in play as you ski by it in winter. In a sense then, these particular trees “like” snow. And that makes me love them even more.