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The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring, by Richard Preston
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Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.
The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.
The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.
Preston’s account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists’ passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees–the story of the fate of the world’s most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself.
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #56116 in Audible
- Published on: 2007-03-29
- Format: Abridged
- Original language: English
- Running time: 341 minutes
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by John VaillantIn this radical departure from Preston's bestsellers on catastrophic diseases (The Demon in the Freezer, etc.), he journeys into the perpendicular universe of the world's tallest trees. Mostly California redwoods, they are the colossal remnants of a lost world, some predating the fall of Rome. Suspended in their crowns, hundreds of feet above the forest floor, is a primeval kingdom of plants and animals that only a handful of people have ever seen. Now, thanks to Preston and a custom-made tree-climbing apparatus called a "spider rig," we get to see it, too.According to Preston, it wasn't until the 1980s that humans made the first forays into the tops of "supertall" trees, in excess of 350 feet high. The people who pioneered their exploration are a rarefied bunch—equal parts acrobat, adventurer and scientist. The book revolves around botanist Steve Sillett, an exceptional athlete with a tormented soul who found his calling while making a borderline suicidal "free" climb to the top of an enormous redwood in 1987, where he discovered a world of startling complexity and richness. More than 30 stories above the ground, he found himself surrounded by a latticework of fused branches hung with gardens of ferns and trees bearing no relation to their host. In this Tolkienesque realm of sky and wind, lichens abound while voles and salamanders live and breed without awareness of the earth below. At almost the exact moment that Sillett was having his epiphany in the redwood canopy, Michael Taylor, the unfocused son of a wealthy real estate developer, had a revelation in another redwood forest 200 miles to the south. Taylor, who had a paralyzing fear of heights, decided to go in search of the world's tallest tree. Their obsessive quests led these young men into a potent friendship and the discovery of some of the most extraordinary creatures that have ever lived. Preston's tireless research, crystalline writing style and narrative gifts are well suited to the subject. Sillett, Taylor and their cohorts, who include a Canadian botanist named Marie Antoine, are fascinating, often deeply wounded characters. Their collective passion and intensity have illuminated one of the most vulnerable and poorly understood ecosystems on this continent. Preston adds a personal twist by mastering the arcane tree climber's art of "skywalking" and partnering with Sillett and Antoine on some of their most ambitious ascents. As impressive as this is, Preston's cameo appearance disrupts the flow of the main narrative and somewhat dilutes its considerable power.John Vaillant is the author of The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (Norton) and winner of the Canadian Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction (2005).
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Richard Preston, whose previous nonfiction thrillers include The Hot Zone (about the Ebola virus) and The Demon in the Freezer (about smallpox; ***1/2 Jan/Feb 2003), takes a botanical detour in The Wild Trees. Most critics praised this noteworthy, if somewhat less sensational, effort. Yet while some relished the offbeat characters, the action-packed sequences, and Preston's personal climbing experiences, others found fault with Preston's detailed descriptions of his subjects' personal lives, his overdramatization of mundane stories for effect, and his self-important account of going "native" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Many were also surprised that Preston had little to say about protecting the remaining redwoods despite their continued endangerment.
Copyright � 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
From Booklist
Preston's previous galvanizing best-sellers, including The Hot Zone (1994) and The Demon in the Freezer (2002), deal with catastrophic viruses and biological weapons. Here he turns to a more uplifting subject, the world's tallest trees. Writing with his signature clarity and drama, Preston profiles a trio of champions of the coast redwood, "the blue whales of the plant kingdom." Botanist Steve Sillett developed acrobatic techniques for reaching the crowns of redwoods more than 300 feet tall. There he discovered an unknown world, the teeming temperate forest canopy, which Preston describes as "coral reefs in the air." Maverick Michael Taylor has discovered redwood giants in nearly impenetrable wilderness areas. So important are his finds, the locations of these redwood groves, some 3,000 years old, are kept secret. Marie Antoine also answered the call of redwoods and married fellow scientist Sillett in an arboreal ceremony. As for Preston, not content to merely watch from the ground, he underwent tree-climbing training and has assisted Sillett and Antoine in their invaluable, gravity-defying work. Preston's hands-on perspective, suspenseful chronicling of the adventures of these vividly portrayed redwood experts, and glorious descriptions of the tall trees' splendor and ecological significance make for a transfixing read. Donna Seaman
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
An amazing book!
By Brian M.
As an avid reader, I like a great variety of books, but this book is in a class all by itself. I had just finished reading The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, which was a frighteningly good read, when I saw this book at my local library. It was so different from any of the other books that Mr. Preston had written, that I decided to give it a try. Who in the world would have believed that a book about trees and the people who climb them could be so riveting? Steve Sillet, the first man to ascend to the top of the redwood canopy, turns out to be one of the most interesting characters you will ever read about. His work in the canopy and the toll it took on his personal life reads like a great novel. The most intense part of the book deals with the stormy night that Steve and his fellow researchers spent in the upper reaches of a mega tree, that appeared to be ready to topple at any moment is worth the price of the book alone! This book should be in every high school science classroom. Strike that, EVERY classroom. It is now in my top three books I have ever read. Not bad when you consider my #1 is John Steinbeck's Cannery Row! Read and enjoy this astounding and outstanding book! You will not be disappointed! I live within a 4 1/2 hour drive to the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park and this book has given me a whole new appreciation for the trees and the ecosystem that they reign supreme over. Truly the most beautiful place on earth.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
... and I was totally ignorant of what more these wonderful trees had going on
By DB in Manteca
I grew up in the redwood forests of Northern California and I was totally ignorant of what more these wonderful trees had going on. It saddens me that so many people don't know this. Richard Preston's The Wild Trees should be required reading in high schools everywhere. Maybe the future generations would look upon the critical care our planet needs with more awareness. I am grateful that people like Steve Stillett, Marie Antoine, Michael Taylor, their mentors and teams were motivated and driven to do the work that they did. I hope we don't let them down... I will weep when I next see the beautiful groves of redwoods at home. We are all so insignificant compared to them, and yet we are of the highest significance in their demise.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
I recommend you read this book
By Adrienne A.
If you haven’t seen a redwood tree but want to, I recommend you read this book. And if you have been in the presence of redwoods but don’t know that much about them I also recommend you read this book. I wrote many notes in the margins, and since finishing it, I have been researching tree climbing schools. I want to experience more of what I learned about reading Richard Preston’s account of being in the Redwood canopy...a whole other world above our heads. The book is inspiring and embodies the passion the author has for his subject.
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