Under the Ponderosas

Yellow pines have a lightning problem. That's the old name for these ponderosas, and in nineteen twenty-nine the park's Nature Notes joked that the life insurance rate on the ones across the canyon was due to rise. Sometimes a strike leaves only a narrow spiral groove and the tree lives. Sometimes the tree explodes, and throws splinters big as an airplane propeller twenty or thirty feet. These trees feed the Abert's squirrel, seed first, as much as seventy-five cones' worth a day in season, then buds and the inner bark of young twigs. You may have heard that the canyon split them from the Kaibab squirrel on the far rim, the one with the dark belly and white tail. The likelier story is that warming after the last Ice Age stranded squirrels and ponderosas together on high ground. The canyon didn't do it. Now keep your eyes on the road. Deer, elk and coyotes all use it. A bull elk averages about nine hundred pounds, and he isn't from here. The park's elk come from animals brought in from Yellowstone. Be most careful at dusk and dawn, and if one steps out, stay in your lane and brake firmly. Mountain lions get hit too. In winter the road crew spreads rock cinders, never salt. On Buggeln Hill, light snow on a wet road at dusk one December tangled about forty vehicles, with no serious injuries reported. It turns that fast. If you're riding, not driving, watch the trunks as they slide by for a narrow groove winding down the bark.