Visiting our cabin in the Cascades has really changed the way we think about Christmas trees. Back in the day when we were relative newlyweds living in a tiny San Francisco flat, making the trip north to Sonoma county to cut a tree at one of Sebastopol's charming tree farms was a really big deal. Fast forward a dozen years or so to Thimbleberry, where virtually all of the trees in the surrounding Fremont & Winema National Forest look like they're auditioning for the role of "White House Christmas Tree" and suddenly we're a couple of jaded tree snobs...
All the other 364 days of the year we're tree huggers. Really. But domestic lots just don't do it for us any more, I'm sorry to say. Our family's sordid holiday pleasure? We like to pull a permit and bag a wild tree. This year early snow & cabin chores precluded an Oregon tree at Thanksgiving, so last weekend we headed off to the remote reaches of the Mendocino National Forest in search of the elusive, high elevation Abies magnifica, or "Silver Tip" red fir. And what a day it was...
Early a.m. found us laying in carbohydrate reserves at Cafe Serafornia in downtown Calistoga. Love their walnut studded Viennese coffee cake! Then it was a pleasant drive over Mt. St. Helena and around the east shore of Clear Lake until we reached the Forest Service office on Middle Elk Road in Upper Lake. From there we departed for points previously unknown to us, past Lake Pillsbury and up, up, up the side of Hull Mountain (elevation 6873'), deep in the heart of the national forest. With the mysterious disappearance of the San Francisco Kim family in Southern Oregon very much on our minds, we made sure we had all the back country essentials packed in our vehicle, but once we got out there we found ourselves anything but alone. Hull Mountain is a popular recreation destination, so little mud-spattered OHV Mad Max carts darted to and fro, para-gliders hung above the ridge line, deer hunters jumped from truck cabs brandishing rifles, kids with monster-tire pickups played at snow-boarding the scrubby patches accumulated by the side of the road, and several other urban tree trippers like ourselves sailed by in foliage topped SUVs. I'm sure an illicit pot farmer or two must have completed the parade of proclivities on display, but with nothing to give them away to the untrained eye, who knows? Just another weirdly democratic day in public lands paradise...
Cooked a picnic of hotdogs and baked beans on our campstove and almost turned back without a tree, but Paul was determined to find his "Silver Tip." On the very last leg of the trip, just below the Hull Mountain overlook, we saw some two-wheel drive half-tons fishtailing for control in snow slurry and decided we had gone far enough. Found a little stand of young red firs and made our selection. This year's Christmas tree is long and lean, kinda like El Greco might render a Christmas tree conflated with one of his St. Sebastians or Christs. I think it tells a tale of just how tough life can be on the hardscrabble margins of high elevation California. Did I mention I love it? Butchering a wild tree is a brutal thing; a thing not to be undertaken lightly... Standing next to our tree this morning in the half light of dawn I remind myself that many trees will die in the forest this year. I hope this tree's month-long seasonal wake in our parlor mitigates its loss. A wildly dark pagan streak in me delights in this tree's presence and admires its sacrifice.
Making the first cuts. Who knew Paul could look so sexy with a pine needle Borat moustache??
BTC (Before Thimbleberry Cabin), we would have gone crazy at the sight of this much snow...
Full moon rising in late afternoon over Snow Mountain.
Oh another wonderful read, and Paul looks like a giant gnome hiding there behind the tree... (yes, I found the blog on my own!)
Posted by: Ulla | December 10, 2006 at 06:12 AM