QUILCENE — Tree hunting is very serious business, folks.
You may not believe it, but randomly driving along snow covered dirt roads, drinking coffee from a thermos and trying to determine if you are breaking any rules before you saw into a tree in the middle of the Olympic National Forest is a delicate art that involves a keen eye, patience and a sense of humor.
The truth of the matter is that any time you are procuring a tree to display for the holidays, there really is an amount of nostalgia and meaning involved.
Simpler time
In my youth, we often had giant monoliths of deep green fir trees sitting in the living room for Christmas as my parents filled up the base with a bounty of presents that I begrudgingly shared with my sisters.
The tree stands for a time when things were simple, when you didn’t worry about where the gifts came from or how much they cost, and when you could spend days away from responsibility playing with that awesome robot that talked and danced.
I want that tree.
On a journey
My friends, Dan Sass and Hilary Humphrey, who I dragged along on my journey into the forest north of Quilcene on a particularly cold Sunday afternoon, also want that tree.
But when you are cutting a tree in the forest, it isn’t that easy.
They aren’t the cookie-cutter versions that you recall from your youth or see in the store.
They are wild and untrimmed and the trunk is a little bit crooked. They are organic and hard to get to, and in many ways they seem to sit perfectly in their surroundings but not too well on their own.
“That isn’t a Christmas tree,” Hilary said as I stood next to a tall but slightly barren Douglas fir next to the access road some unknown miles west of Lords Lake.
She’s right, but there aren’t a lot of options left. We’ve been looking for hours and none of them quite fit in with what we remember a Christmas tree looking like.
So we hike uphill for a way before we decide that it’s way too cold and way too steep to do this anymore. So we settle. We pick a tree for each of us, and we cut.
This is when it all makes sense.
When you are cutting a tree in a foot of snow on a steep hill you start slipping, sliding and laughing.
It’s a little bit dangerous, but it doesn’t matter because it’s funny to watch your friends do everything they can to hold on to a slick hill as they keep missing their cut marks at the base of a small fir tree.
After a few minutes, you all decide enough is enough and quit trying to stay dry. You’re sitting in the snow, laying in it, doing whatever it takes to cut that tree.
Then you have to get it down the hill.
The falling down accelerates as you work your way down the incline, holding the tree and the saw and trying to help everyone else get down safely.
By the bottom of the hill it’s chaos. You’re all soaking wet, cold, laughing and throwing snowballs.
This really is a Christmas tree. Just like when we were kids, we aren’t worrying about our responsibilities, we don’t care where the presents come from and things really are simple, if only for a moment.
“We need to do more stuff like this,” Dan said as we tagged the trees and tied them to the car.
He’s right.
It’s not a thick, bushy monolith sitting in the living room, but it’s got a story, it’s got character and it’s got meaning.
It’s kind of clunky and oddly shaped, but it brought back that nostalgia of our youth.
Folks, I assure you, tree hunting is very serious business.
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.
