This time last year, I was ricocheting from a multi-week trek in the High Sierra up to the PNW to catch a train cross-country, heading towards the couches and spare rooms of various friends around the Great Lakes. It stands in stark contrast to the moment in which I find myself now: I officially got the keys to a new apartment this week, at the end of what felt like a too-good-to-be-true hunt for housing (that is, it went quickly with excellent results, which I in no way expected). There’s still work to be done; the place is partially furnished, allowing me to move in gradually, but there’s a big U-Haul trip in my near future, to empty the storage unit that’s been something of a strange home base these last two years. In the meantime I’m back and forth from the grocery store, slowly filling up the pantry with essentials, and doing the many small endless tasks that come with an official change in residence.
There’s lots more to say about this, including why and how I’ve ended up where I am. But before I commit to too much in writing here, I’m going to go give the place around me a more proper hello. I head out soon for a few nights to wander the local hills, to say “hi” to the trees, and to take a minute with both to listen and see if they have anything to share back.
Taking a hike to listen for a little direction will be a lot more like what I did with that trip in the Sierra last year, which I described to many friends as working something like a portal. I’d been mostly at loose ends in the aftermath of the end of a relationship in 2021, a bit unsure of what to do with myself. By the time I reached the Awhanee Valley, though, the dread and uncertainty I’d been carrying around were missing, sweated out or sloughed off along the hundreds of miles now behind me. I didn’t know where I was headed just then, only that I could feel it was once again a direction that felt forward, and that I was once again moving as myself, some invisible but missing element newly restored.
“Bookend” is the other word I used to talk about the experience of that hike, in which I retraced ground I had covered in 2015 on a multi-month trek on the Pacific Crest Trail. The summer of 2015 was also a time of self-restoration, and felt like it paved the way for the chapter of life that then played out over the next seven years; returning to the same bit of trail allowed me to say farewell and move on.
Or maybe it was just time that did all that. But I like to think it was the hiking.
Either way, it’s had me revisiting photos from last year, many which I had planned to share here, especially as so many would have nicely complimented the photo essays Unsettling ran around that time—both “Texture of a Burn” and “Fire as Sculptor.” But the set below, as you’ll see, feels a little different.
These are all from my second day on the Nüümü Poyo, by which time I had already merged with the PCT. Meaning: I had seen these trees before, and I don’t recall that they were burned on my first time through. I could be wrong, but regardless, the burn felt fresh, and I experienced it as new.
I believe that most of the trees in these shots are foxtail pines. From what little I’ve read, we don’t know if foxtails, like sequoias, require fire—it’s likely, but under-researched. But we do seem to know that they grow in formations that prevent fire from spreading too rapidly. On this stretch of trail, one can see this: they got fire— mostly just enough if they needed it, not too much overall. Certainly as a collective, as a forest, the stand felt less depleted than many burns in which I’ve walked.
What’s more, the fire brought out a beauty in many of these trees that was hidden before they burned. Color, warmth, shape, and texture all change. One of the few species that live in the Sierra’s subalpine zone, foxtails are often found right at treeline and prone to lightning strikes. Even if they have not otherwise experienced fire, many wear marks made by lightning. If you wanted a natural symbol to manifest the notion that our scars are what make us each uniquely beautiful, you have it in these trees. I should have been rushing past them, heading for better cover given an impending storm. Yet I kept stopping, to take just one more look.
And then there was these two trees, hauling the granite along with them in the strangely abstract and singed skeleton of their former roots:
Our scars can be our beauty; where we’ve been burned is where our best colors sometimes might shine through. What a gift to receive such a reminder, on that early day of a journey that closed the door on a chapter of life which had left me feeling worn down by its frequent tempests. I know that afternoon I went on to joyfully face the next storm—literal as it was, its sharp bursts of wind already pushing me along. I’m still glad I lingered and caught a few pictures of the foxtails to share here with all of you.
We’ll be back with more soon, including additional pieces continuing our ‘occupations and rebellions’ series, and maybe another photo essay or two as well. Thanks for being here, and for reading.
Until next time,
Meg
All images in this piece (and at Unsettling more broadly) are by the author unless otherwise noted. Works on this page and in the newsletter email may be shared under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 International License. Please cite as “Fire and Foxtails in the Sierra” by Meg Wade with link to unsettling.substack.com.