Jane Merryman

Zwinger, Ann H., and Beatrice E. Willard. Land Above the Trees, A Guide to American Alpine Tundra. The University of Arizona Press, 1972.

The land above the trees is a harsh land. Mostly rock—boulders, talus, scree, pebbles, grit. The sun is merciless; even shadows hide from it. The wind lives here, close to the thunder that rumbles through the canyons on summer afternoons. Everything looks clean, swept, tidied. As if all that is useless and unnecessary has been sent off to Goodwill.

Ann Zwinger and Beatrice Willard introduced me to this remarkable place, about ten thousand feet above sea level. I found Land Above the Trees in a bookstore in Ashland, Oregon, and was immediately charmed by Zwinger’s elegant line drawings of marsh marigolds, rock sedges, bog laurels, and other tough little plants of the alpine tundra.

Thus began my annual pilgrimages. Every summer I spend a few days wandering in this no-frills country. In a narrow window of time straddling July and August, the landscape, minimal and spare, brushed and scraped by wind and ice, reveals it glorious treasures—wildflowers.

Alpine plants know how to thrive in this harsh land. They hunker down below the wind and send out long taproots to reach moisture cached deep within the lean mineral soil. They grow close, hugging themselves, and stand up no taller than the span of my hand. They grow slowly; a cushion of leaves and flowers might be six inches across, but it is probably fifty years old.

Flowers here are huge and often out of proportion to the dwarf plants. The colors—brilliant red, saturated yellow, deep blue—are making grandstand plays to attract the few pollinators—moths, bees, and hummingbirds—that venture this high. These plants must produce a bud, form a flower, attract a pollinator, set seed, and scatter it—all in the few weeks before the snow begins to fall again. To save energy, some plants set buds one year and flower the next.

I have learned much from this landscape. I have learned how to walk down a steep, loose slope—bend my knees and dig my heels in first—and how to judge the distance of a thunderstorm: from the lightning flash I count a-thousand-and-one, a-thousand-and-two . . . until I hear the thunder clap. Each count of seven represents one mile. At this altitude the atmosphere contains half the oxygen it does at my home down below; every cell in my body complains and I must listen. I have learned these and other ways to exist in this habitat, but that is not what I mean when I talk about what this landscape teaches me. How to live is what it teaches me.

Alpine plants don’t have it easy, yet I rarely see a stunted, raggedy, or half-hearted specimen. Each plant, each flower, achieves its full potential. I remember seeing a lone butter-yellow arnica growing on a wall of rock. Its leaves and petals were perfect, and I thought of the slogan the United States Army has used on its recruiting posters: Be All You Can Be. What a shame the military preempted this advice, advice about as spiritual as you can get.

I look at these plucky little plants and I, too, try to be all I can be. I hunker down below the winds of fashion and fad. For refreshment, I search deep below the arid scree spewed out by the media. I am a late-bloomer, but I no longer fret about it. When the time is right, I somehow manage to produce a glorious blossom, all the more precious because it is short-lived.

I go to this place to be free. Unburdened. Perhaps I am just lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. Or perhaps I feel light because I am don’t miss the pile of things I left in the lowlands—my stuff has no meaning here.

Above the trees—only rock, water, wind, flowers. All they can be.