Читать книгу Trinity Alps & Vicinity: Including Whiskeytown, Russian Wilderness, and Castle Crags Areas. A Hiking and Backpacking Guide онлайн
20 страница из 134
Streams at these elevations may be lined with cottonwoods. Alders are reduced to the size of bushes and are usually associated with willows in wet areas. Different varieties of willows thrive at all elevations, but they are generally the size of shrubs here. Mountain ash and vine maple are also fairly common broadleaf shrubs in this region.
Some southern exposures at this level are covered with large areas of solid brush, referred to as mountain chaparral. Ceanothus, manzanita, chokecherry, serviceberry, tobacco brush, and huckleberry oak are the primary shrubs.
Subalpine Forest Foxtail pines have found a home in the Trinity Alps at elevations ranging from 6,500 to 8,000 feet, along with smaller amounts of whitebark pines and mountain mahoganies clinging to the exposed and inhospitable ridgecrests. Somewhat surprisingly, Jeffrey pines, western white pines, and an occasional incense cedar persist in this zone, but usually in startlingly modified forms—stunted and contorted, pruned by the high winds, and bent over by the weight of winter storms. The only trees seemingly able to stand erect on top of these windswept ridges are whitebark pines and foxtail pines. Foxtail pines may sometimes be mistaken for firs at first glance, but they have bundles of five needles that grow tightly spaced all the way around supple branches that resemble small, green foxtails.