November 3, 2018

Posted on by mr_rambler

Juniper Slablands Tour

back back yard

Krummholz refers to the way some near treeline, subalpine trees grow prostrate, in mats that remain buried and protected by the snowpack (also wind bowed Cypress on the sea shore). It’s is a self protective adaptation, but also one that is directly enforced by the weather conditions themselves. If you stick a branch up, the blowing blizzard will prune it back. 

Whitebark Pine is the most common species here in the Sierra which takes this krummholz form, but Juniper, Lodgepole, and Jeffery Pine krummholz are also not uncommon.

But this Cedar here is the only of its kind I have seen, and is for that matter, the only Cedar I’ve seen in this vicinity period.  We have a real pioneer here, at the top of its elevation range, in a very exposed position, far from the company of it’s mates.  Cedars don’t grow near treeline, but this specimen’s growth has clearly been altered by the formidable snowpack here, in a specific location where such a low lying growth form doesn’t exclude it from access to the summer sun light it must usually strive ever upward to find, so its just chilling like that, lounging in repose.  ‘This is fine’ 

fresh rock slide scar 

Likely in the big winter of 2017, a rain on snow, melt runoff, flood event loosened up and exfoliated the thick surface layer of granite onion skin, which tumbled into an old jumble of huge boulders of similar origins at the base of the cliff (likely a fault scarp), as is often found at the base of glaciated canyon walls here. 

I had explored this pile of giant blocks a few times, years past, looking for cool passageways and rooms in the spaces beneath and between the massive boulders, imagining the natives taking refuge here from rain storms and what not. Yeah, no. I’m not going in there again this century.

note that these photos were taken with a new, at the time, point and shoot instead of my usual iPhone, and lack a certain pizazz that no amount of photoshopping on my part could replace, but at least it was bulky and the battery died halfway through my day

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