Trees are a big part of this season of the year. Christmas trees, Yule logs, branches and greens for wreaths, all get attention. Seems like a good time to write about them and all the other trees, the ones still out in the forest.

As a kid, I am not sure I understood where the tree we decorated each year came from. It was the same each December, yet exciting. The Christmas tree was positioned in the living room picture window, visible inside and out. We gazed at it for hours, all lights other than those strung on the tree turned off. We played an ornament guessing game that we invented, though most kids no doubt had a variation of their own. Taking the tree down the day after the New Year signaled the end of the season and the return to school—not my favorite day.

When my wife Ruth and I came to Montana, we started our own version of a tradition that many Montanans follow. We went out into the hills to cut our Christmas tree. I was very particular about the process. Though the forest contains millions of trees, I was reluctant to cut one down. My choices were usually a tree that looked none too healthy, or one so near a more viable tree that taking it out was a form of housecleaning. I felt good about this until we reached home and set the tree up. There seemed to be few needles, and even fewer branches. My trees made Charlie Brown’s look lush. This comedy lasted until we had kids.

Our boys wanted the tallest, fullest, greenest tree they could locate. But as soon as I made the cut, they lost interest and disappeared into the woods in some hiding game. Dragging the tree to the truck was my job. Making the cut was also the moment when I realized the tree was huge. Our living room is a bit smaller than the forest. No problem; when I trimmed a few feet off the bottom, we had plenty of boughs to arrange for display and scent. Not long ago, I noticed a ceiling spot in our sunroom where I had brushed some resin from a tree I had left too tall.

Too soon, our boys grew up, and their December days were spent at Bridger Bowl or at sports practice. Our tree-cutting tradition waned. Instead of obtaining a Forest Service permit, we bought our trees in town from the Lions Club, or from Jerry Cashman. I have to admit they were shapely and thick. There was still the setup and the decorating of the tree by all of us, so the season felt the same.

Inevitably, our boys left for college and moved away, though we did not expect that to be as far as New Zealand or Hawaii. For some time, we somehow managed to gather for the Holidays. Then we retired and moved away also, though just for the snowbird part of the year. Now, we take our time together as it comes. If that includes Christmas, we celebrate with a tree from a box made from something resembling Astroturf. This has the lights and the ornaments, but not any fragrance. We go to the mountains and use the permit to gather boughs.

Winter in the mountains is different. It is silent. Perhaps it is the cold air that makes one more alert and focused. On winter trails, the hiker’s attention becomes acute. There are no flowers, few birds, and the grasses are covered. There is snow and sky; there are the trees. Color is largely absent, so the shades of green in them stand out. In the Bridgers, where many of us hike throughout the season, the main tree growth is fir and juniper.

There are three trails to the M, referred to from north to south as the easy way, the regular way, and the steep way. The latter is, of course, the quickest.

Virtually all of this trail is on the open slope southwest of the M. The junipers are here, but not much else. However, about 2/3 of the way up there is a tall, lone tree. It serves as a kind of waypoint on the hike. Not one to take many breaks on the slope, I always noted the tree, but never really looked at it. Years ago, I finally did. Not sure why—perhaps to gaze at a bird or appreciate a breeze. I realized that the tree was not a Douglas Fir. The needles were long, which usually means a pine. In Montana, that means a lodgepole east of the Divide, and a Ponderosa westward. This tree was neither. Intrigued, I gathered a cone and a bunch of the needles.

At one time, identifying the tree would have meant a trip to the library or questioning someone smarter than myself, both easy options. Now, I could have figured it out by simply pointing my phone and clicking. But at the time, I Googled it. The pitfall with this method is too much information, the rabbit hole of excess. The tree was a whitebark pine. Once I determined this, I began to notice more of them up and down the mountainside. Then I returned to Google to obtain more information, to explore the rabbit hole.

Whitebark pines are a western North American species with main populations in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alberta. There are also extensive groves in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. They are found in clusters, but often, lone trees appear on cliff edges or windswept ridges, seeming to grow from nearly solid stone. Some are tall and symmetrical like the one on the M slope. Yet most are wind-shaped, gnarled, even twisted by their location. Like many things and ideas, whitebarks are threatened in the 21st century. Their enemies are disease, insects, and climate change.

Blister rust is the disease; fortunately, it is not epidemic. Mountain pine beetle is the insect; it has been epidemic. Previously, the pine beetle has been a lowland scourge. Being a high altitude tree, whitebarks were largely untouched. Climate change ended that immunity. Warmer temperatures caused the insects to migrate to higher elevations. A major outbreak began in the 1990s and spread through pine forests from Colorado to British Columbia. Whitebark pines were hard hit because there are fewer of them. The infestation lasted a long time, but lost momentum about ten years ago. Part of the reason is ironic. Climate change causes extremes of weather. Warmer temperatures allowed the beetles to ascend to the whitebarks, but very low winter temperatures halted their advance.

As is true of all things in the world, whitebark pines have a niche in the system. Theirs is interesting, since it involves birds and bears. Clark’s Nutcrackers, a mountain bird related to crows, gather the whitebark seeds, creating many caches throughout the mountains. Some of these are eaten by the birds during the long winter. Some of the seeds they scatter germinate and grow more pines. Other caches are raided by grizzly and black bears, providing a key source of fat as they move toward hibernation.

As for the whitebarks in general, right now there is a kind of truce. This is probably why I enjoy hiking among the whitebarks in December. The air is cold, the bugs are dead. The forest and the ridges seem clean. Somehow the snow and ice, and the dark green trees, exude a sense of health.

My grandfather used to screw eyelets into pine cones and tie in some ribbon for homemade Christmas ornaments. The size and shape of whitebark cones brought back his idea. I have made these for family and friends. What better decoration for an evergreen tree at Christmas than a natural cone? A green tree, brown cones, some red ribbon.

Two things that most of us do not care for are to be reminded of our age, and to be humbled. I can experience both with a quick walk to my front yard. Many years ago I planted a fuzzy little blue spruce there. As I positioned the sapling and began to dig, my elderly neighbor appeared and suggested a spot more toward the center of my yard. I agreed, but thought the move unnecessary. Today, the tree crowds both the other yard and the sidewalk.

For a couple of years, I bent down to string lights on the tiny tree. Soon, I was using a ladder. Finally, I just left the lights up in the tree year round. They lasted for a while. This year, we had an arborist over to check on some other plants. He admired the spruce and, looking up, commented on a tangle of wires high off the ground. He smiled and said he knew how that had happened. The blue spruce is now thirty-five years old, and thirty-five feet tall.