Desiree and I took another mountain drive above Lincoln, Montana, to survey the autumn colors. We ascended high into the mountains on a fairly rough road with an express interest in seeing if the tamarack trees have joined in blushing with their fall colors.
The trees we call tamaracks are
not, technically, tamaracks. They are
western larch trees. Nonetheless, I
continue to call them tamaracks because Richard Hugo, one of my favorite poets,
called them so. This may not be sound
reasoning, but it works for me.
Here in Montana, tamarack trees
flourish only on the western side of the Continental Divide. A single tamarack tree lives in the pine and
fir forest just above my cabin, only a dozen or so miles west of the Great
Divide. But as you make your way west
from my cabin, you begin to encounter more and more tamaracks.
Though they look like
evergreens, tamaracks they are a deciduous conifer. As such, they wash with color each fall and
shed all of their needles. Each spring
they return to life with a new array of bright green needles.
As it turns out, we were a bit early on the drive. The tamaracks are just beginning to change color. Even so, the drive proved lovely.
A Blush of Fall Colors Along
the Road
A Roadside Tamarack Turning
Colors (On the Left)
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