The Incredible Foxtail Pine
I remember the exact moment that foxtail pines imprinted themselves permanently in my memory. After descending from 13,153-foot Forester Pass, the John Muir Trail crosses Tyndall Creek and almost immediately climbs toward the Bighorn Plateau, a barren moonscape populated by marmots and surrounded by jagged peaks. If there are trees in this area they are stunted by the proximity to the treeline except for the ruddy-barked foxtail pine, with its broad trunk and windswept foliage standing stalwart against the harshest of elements. It seemed even more amazing that foxtails could seemingly thrive when even modest ground cover had retreated to more salubrious habitats. The forest floor was virtually barren.
This population of foxtail pines is some 500 miles from the foxtail pines in the Klamath Knot on California’s North Coast (where I live), where I live, and has been separated since the mid-Pleistocene (some million years). Both retain the bottlebrush needle arrangement that gives foxtail pines their distinctive appearance and name. But there are differences. Over the millennia, these subspecies have diverged in foliage, crown form, and bark color. The southern subspecies can live more than twice as long as its northern relatives (1,000 years), although neither contest the longevity of the foxtail’s cousin, the bristlecone pine (which touch 5,000 years). Some botanists have attributed the larger size of the southern subspecies to its longer life.
In the Klamath Knot, the foxtail does well in nutrient-deficient soils and is often found along high, dry ridgelines. Conifer guru Michael Kauffmann calls these isolated environments ‘sky islands’. These sky islands do not tend to be accessible in any other way than by a challenging, often arduous walk. That was exactly where I found a stand of foxtails below North Yolla Bolly Peak (7,868’). These trees seem to do best in the harshest of conditions often bent at the base from the weight of winter snow and dead at the top from relentless ridge top winds. The foxtail is the symbol of determination and resilience. Perhaps they too appreciate the magnificent views.
It was to be our fifth day of trail work along the Bigfoot Trail. Much of our effort had focused on removing downed trees and cutting back the brush that encroached on the trail. We had pushed as far as eight miles from our base camp which necessitated long exhausting walks in addition to the trail work. There was general interest in a break. While some spent the day bird watching and others ‘botanizing’, four of us found the abandoned fire lookout on Black Rock Mountain irresistible. This tired sentinel of a tower, made obsolete by technology, still watches over the northern Yolla Bollys. Had it been staffed, the lookout could well have called in the small fire that smoldered a ridgeline to the south sending skyward a modest plume of white smoke. It turned out that lightning had sparked the East Fire five days before our arrival and, gratefully, it never did amount to much. The Forest Service assigned two fire fighters to stay with our trail work group just in case the fire’s temperament changed and an evacuation was necessary. After the tragic fires of the past couple of years, all of California remains a bit on edge.
As we climbed we emerged from the incense cedar forest that surrounded our camp passing through patches of Shasta fir that dot the otherwise exposed expanse of Pettijohn Meadow. The route sent us below North Yolly Bolly to a broad saddle that separated the two peaks. Even in late June, substantial fields of snow blanketed the north face of this high ridge with the peaks – North Yolla Bolly and Black Rock – at opposite ends. It was an ample reminder that winter lasts much of the year at this elevation.
Intermingled with the Shasta fir were the foxtail, and then it was only foxtail grabbing onto the rocky, exposed ridge. David Rains Wallace says that these mountains seem old, marked by “the wrinkles and leanness of great age.” There are elements of flora and fauna here, he continues, that reach “farther into the past than any place west of the Mississippi River.” Perhaps it is only fitting that fossil records for the foxtail pine extend back more than 40 million years. It is a pretty amazing tree.
