Adventures of a big-tree photographer - includes related article

American Forests, Jan-Feb, 1992 by Whit Bronaugh

By WHIT BRONAUGH

The rewards of this unique pastime are measured in far more than memorable images. had arrived too late for photography that evening, but I couldn't resist getting a glimpse of my first national champion tree. Stepping out of my car, I was suddenly immersed in the earthy smells and cautious sounds of the forest. A flashlight seemed obtrusive, so I left it behind and walked down the path in darkness. As my eyes adjusted, the treetops revealed themselves as inky black silhouettes set against the Milky Way. Then I saw something that looked, well, wrong. It looked like nothing-as in the absence of everything, including light. The emptiness before me was impossibly wide, like a giant tear in the fabric of space. Certainly, the word "tree" did not come to mind. The theme song from The Twilight Zone did.

I circled the unnerving object to see if it was several overlapping trees, but no break in the darkness appeared. Prevented by a fence from touching it, I tried to imagine the black void filled with solid wood, but it was easier to believe in the Twilight Zone.

The next morning, when I returned with my camera, I still had trouble applying my concept of a tree to what the sun now revealed was indeed the General Sherman sequoia. But then, the General Sherman, like other national champions, is no ordinary tree.

After several days of photographing General Sherman and other sequoias, I wondered how impressed I would be when I went to photograph other champion trees. When you've seen one champion, especially the champion of champions, have you seen them all?

The next champion tree on my list was a species I have known intimately since early childhood. Back then, all trees fell into one of three types: those I could climb, those I couldn't, and those called black walnuts. Each September my hands would be stained brown from gathering the big This western juniper in Stanislaus National Forest, California, is one of the 40 national champs the author has captured coast to coast. walnuts that, unhulled, went for about two cents a pound. My baseball-card collection grew as I discovered the locations of the biggest walnut trees.

Years later, when I headed up to northern California to photograph the king of black walnuts, I expected to find something comparable to the big trees of my enterprising youth. I could make a comparison, all right, but it required a factor of about four. No telling how many Mickey Mantles I could have had if that tree had been in my backyard. The champ had limbs bigger than any walnut tree I'd ever seen. The crown, which dwarfed a nearby barn, could shade nearly one-third of a football field. If you've seen one champion, I realized, then you've seen only one champion.

Since then, as an ongoing project, I've visited and photographed some 40 national champion trees from Connecticut to California, from the 1,300point General Sherman down to the 45- point California hoptree. I've never been disappointed. Each encounter is unique in its aesthetic rewards and photographic challenges.

Sometimes the biggest challenge is to find the subject. Not every national champion tree is the center of attraction in a well-known park with signs pointing that-a-way.' A number of champs have their vital statistics engraved on their own little plaque of wood, metal, or even stone, but most stand off the beaten path, unmarked and generally unrecognized.

My directions to find the biggest California-laurel in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon seemed simple enough: Go a quarter mile east on Road 3533 and park, then walk uphill about 100 yards to the tree. Right. I headed into the woods with tripod and camera gear, planning to be set up in five minutes. Wrong. The terrain had more in common with cliffs than hills. I counted my paces, guessing about one step back for every three forward on parts of the steep, unstable slope. After perhaps 200 yards, I figured I'd missed the tree, but was I too far east or too far west? At what level should I traverse? Two hours later, feeling like a rat in a maze, I finally stumbled upon an hourglass-shaped California-laurel with a hollow center roomy enough for a small party.

My confidence in you-can't-miss-it directions took another blow last winter on my quest for the co-champion Sierra lodgepole pine. "It's easy to find, " a ranger with the San Bernardino National Forest told me, "because there's a sign right next to it." After an uphill, five-mile ski, I arrived at the designated "X" on my map and found a big lodgepole pine. But there was no "This Is It" sign. I used the sun's last rays to photograph it just in case the sign was missing for some reason. Had I never heard of the sign, I would have had little doubt.

It wasn't until I was about halfway back to the roadhead, after a small accident, that I figured out what had happened. The moon slipped behind a cloud, causing a slight but critical navigation error that left me planted, headfirst, in the deep, sugary powder off-trail. After floundering a bit, I pushed down on my ski poles and was surprised at how deep the snow was. Suddenly, I knew that I had photographed the right tree, or at least all but the bottom four or five feet of it; the sign, along with the base of the champion Sierra lodgepole pine, had simply been covered by snow.