My Holy Grail

Of course, I might find a holier grail in the future...  but so far, this has been the best broom that I've found.  It is found a few miles south of Canada, in Northern Washington in a Subalpine Fir- Abies lasciocarpa.

A few years ago, my dad graciously agreed to drive while I sat in the back of the pickup, watching for brooms.  It was a narrow dirt road that wound through a mountain pass.  We had passed through forests of Douglas fir, Western White Pine, and Western Larch.  We started to get high enough that a few Subalpine Fir  were mixed in with the other species.    As we turned a corner, I just barely caught sight of a green mass off to my right.  We had passed it before I could really get a look at it.  I thumped on the rear window- the signal for Dad to stop.  As we backed up, the scene in the picture above came into view.

The broom looked like a cluster of miniature trees- a diminutive forest.  I scrambled up the bank to get a look at what I'd be facing when I came back to collect scions.  The bank was brutally steep- I could barely make it up.  Of course, it would be covered in several feet of snow when I returned.  Would that make it easier or more difficult to get up to the base of the tree?

I marked the location on my GPS, and we continued the drive over the pass.  One the way home, Dad and I discussed possibilities for retrieving scions.  At 5300 feet in elevation, the road would be snowed-in fairly early in the year.  It might be possible to drive up there at Thanksgiving in an unusually warm year- but most likely I'd be looking at renting a snowmobile.

When December rolled around, I called a company in Spokane that rented snow machines by the day.  I rented an ATV with tracks- a monster of a machine.  We picked it up in Spokane before hauling it up to the north country.

My nephew and I set out at about 10 in the morning.  It was an overcast day, and there were a few inches of fresh snow on the trees.  The tree was about 10 miles in from the plowed road, so it took us an hour or so to get in there.  That's when the real fun began.

I had thought that the bank was too steep when there was no snow.  That was nothing, compared to what it was like with several feet of snow on the ground.  At first, I tried to use snowshoes to climb, but it was far to steep for them to be useful.  I then resorted to wading in the snow- sinking in to my waist.

I wasn't really sure I could do it.  It was brutally difficult to get up to the top of the bank.  Then I had to make my way up the hill above that, which was almost as steep.  I had my nephew throw me the gun when I reached a stable spot.

After another half-hour of struggling, I was finally under the tree.  I lifted the 16 gauge to my shoulder and proceeded to empty a box of 20 shells into the broom.  Despite the fact that they were magnum loads, there was just not enough power to break off more than a couple of tiny twigs.  I was out of ammo and only had three or four pieces that I didn't think were useable.

Disappointed, we headed back down the pass.

When I got home, I grafted the tiny twigs onto some grand fir rootstocks.  They all died a few months later.

I was frustrated, but I became even more determined to propagate this tree.  It was just too cool-looking, and I had already put in too much effort to give up.  Next year, I'd take a bigger gun.