Skyscrapers of nature: 'Wild Trees'

Preston explores a mysterious world once known only to a few intrepid, entranced explorers.

from the April 24, 2007 edition

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Sillett, instead, is 19 when he and two companions leave college classes behind in Oregon and head to a grove of wild growth redwoods in Northern California, many of which are 3,000 years old. Sillett spies a tree 30 stories high, the top of which is beyond view. But to even begin climbing it, he must first climb an adjacent 50-foot redwood as a starting point. Using no climbing gear, he reaches the top of this smaller tree and then leaps across, grabbing a branch dangling from its much higher neighbor.

Did I mention that Sillett, like many of the other men and women we meet in this book, suffers from acrophobia?

Preston takes the reader on a compelling journey into a world experienced only by a limited number of scientists and outdoorsmen (Preston himself included). The forest canopies of the earth hold roughly one half of all the species that exist in nature. Preston calls trees "the earth's secret ocean ... inhabited by many living things that don't even have names, and are vanishing before they have even been seen by human eyes." As a species, the modern redwood is believed to be 20 million to 50 million years old – in other words, perhaps as much as 80 times older than modern man. "Wild" trees (the kind that fascinate the seekers in this book) are trees that are believed never to have been climbed by man. No wonder this secret, dreamy world has the power to fascinate.

Sillett, Antoine, a third dreamer named Michael Taylor, and others have spent the past two decades in rarely visited backwoods areas in coastal northern California, in part consumed by a drive to find and climb the mythical "tallest tree." Their passion for trees has shaped their lives, damaging some of their human relationships but forging others (as evidenced by the love story that blossoms late in the book).

The discipline of tree climbing and the equipment needed to complete it – which Preston describes in detail – can at times seem arcane. But that won't diminish the pleasures offered by "The Wild Trees." This is a journey that I encourage you to take.

• Larry Sears is a freelance writer in El Paso, Texas.

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