The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring

Written by Richard Preston

Narrated by Richard Preston

Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained -- the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. The biggest redwoods are over a thousand years old, rising more than thirty-five stories in what's left of the once-vast ancient redwood forest. Believed to be impossible to ascend, these majestic giants have remained unexplored until recently Š when a tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists discovered a lost, dangerous and hauntingly beautiful world high above California.

In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of these young voyagers who risk everything to explore the redwood canopy, where the massive trees form flying buttresses and cathedral-like structures in the air. They find a vertical Eden of hanging gardens and rare creatures, an untouched paradise where it's possible to stretch hammocks between tree branches and make love 300 feet in the air. But as they move through the treetops suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, these young adventurers know that the smallest mistake can result in a plunge to one's death.

Preston mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to recount the discovery of this amazing world -- a grand adventure by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, from a master of nonfiction narrative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 10, 2007
• ISBN: 9780743561228

Richard Preston

Michael Crichton has sold over 200 million books, which have been translated into thirty-eight languages; thirteen of his books have been made into films. Also known as a filmmaker and the creator of ER, he remains the only writer to have had the number one book, movie, and TV show simultaneously. At the time of his death in 2008, Crichton was well into the writing of Micro; Richard Preston was selected to complete the novel. Richard Preston is the internationally bestselling author of eight books, including The Hot Zone and The Wild Trees. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives with his wife and three children near Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews for The Wild Trees

[jim · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an amazing story of an awesome piece of nature
Written to capture your attention
Well done

[peacemover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In "The Wild Trees," Richard Preston transports the reader into the realm of the giant Redwood trees of Northern California. Some of these giants reach more than 300 feet into the sky. Up in the canopy among these massive, living behemoths there are entire ecosystems and unique species that flourish right there atop these majestic living monuments.Preston accounts both his initial curiosity and how his quest was launched, as well as his adventures up to the top of these great trees in vivid detail. Not only does he paint wonderful word pictures, he educates and advocates for these increasingly rare living giants. There is adventure, science, environmental advocacy, powerful story-telling, and even intrigue all right within the pages of this excellent book. Highly recommended!

[cindysprocket · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just to say I have been fortunate enough to see Giant Redwoods. Which made this book a real treat.

[corrmorr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was such a fascinating book that I had trouble putting it down.Preston climbs trees. Using his own experience, he meets, follows, documents and finally participates with some of the most experienced tall tree climbers in the country. We know their fear, bravery, dedication, and knowledge. We learn of hidden biomes, appreciate the significance of scientific discovery, and worry about the future of the trees.

[dele2451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I purchased this book earlier this summer at park visitor center before hiking into three of the redwood forests mentioned in this book. Even without the book, my week of hiking through the redwood forest trails was an awe-inspiring, life changing event but I wish I would have had the opportunity to digest the book before my trip so I would have had a better understanding of the many wonders I was seeing. My compliments to Mr Preston on his resolve to tell this story (and for mastering the difficult climbing skills necessary to bring the story to ground level) and for making the science portions so accessible for the non-botanists/biologists in the population. Some of the personal-relationships-gone-wrong tidbits seemed slightly (very slightly) gratuitous, otherwise I would have bumped up my rating even higher. It's a very inspiring and informative read and you don't have to be a scientist, or even an environmentalist, to enjoy it--a definite recommend.

[winterwhisper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a spellbinding story of discovery. The almost unexplored world of California's Redwood canopy once thought to be almost lifeless, teams with beautiful hanging gardens of epiphytes, reefs of lichen, small animals, and undiscovered species of flora & fauna. This is a biography of the trees, of the explorers who first began climbing them, & of discovery herself. Enjoy the adventure told in novelistic prose & detailing this enormous new world!

[krismcg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating, dramatic story of the people obsessed with climbing the tallest trees int he world.

[davefragments · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a great read. The story is fascinating and engrossing. . . Then halfway through the book it gets exciting.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5***

The book is subtitled: A Story of Passion and Daring and that is the best description. It reminds me of Krakauer?s book Into the Wild in that Preston describes young men who are brilliant and singular in pursuing their chosen field of study (tree botany), but awkward and distant from most personal relationships.

Steve Sillett and Michael Taylor begin their studies completely independent of one another, but share the wonder and awe for the magnificent California redwoods and a determination to discover the world?s tallest tree. Along the way they discover entire ecosystems and new realms in biodiversity. Known among their peers in the field, they nevertheless shun the spotlight and are obsessively protective of the hidden groves where these giants live. That Preston gained their trust and wrote so eloquently about their quest (without revealing the details of the locations of these trees) is a testament to his skill and character as a journalist and writer.

He writes a nonfiction account that is fascinating and compelling. There were a few parts that dragged ? mostly when Preston got involved in the story and outlined his own attempts (and that of his family) to learn tree-climbing techniques. Still, while I didn?t think this was as good as his earlier works (The Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer), I was entertained and interested from beginning to end.

[theageofsilt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's like "My Dinner with Andre", but the fantastical and rambling narrative is all about giant trees and the folks who become obsessed with them. This nonfiction account follows the people who must climb and explore the redwoods of California, which are hundreds of feet high, despite the danger obvious to a sane person. In the canopy, they find a mini-universe of salamanders which have never touched the ground, lichen never before seen by people and dirt, of all things. Fascinating stuff!

[midlevelbureaucrat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book takes place in my backyard, my office, and among people I already know. More adventure tale than a revealing of the majesty of northwest California's redwood forests, it is, nonetheless, a book for anyone with a passing interest in the timeless mysteries of these ancient forests.I know (not well, mind you) a couple of the main characters in the book and Richard Preston portrays them mostly as they're known around here. The valiant lead, Steve Sillett, a young, driven, and clever biologist unlocks the mysteries of the redwood canopy while those within his circle learn to live with his drive and ego. I spoke with Sillett a few weeks ago about his reaction to the book. He was clearly uncomfortable with the amount of personal information (a failed marriage, his wife's troubled childhood, joining the exclusive 300' club) but says he had no editorial control over the book. But, he acknowledges that if a popular book by a well-known author brings folks to a better understanding of the endangered redwood forests, then perhaps those personal revelations may serve a greater good.Preston focuses less on the wonder of the redwoods, however, than on the adventure of climbing up and into the tallest trees on earth. The uniqueness and timelessness of the redwood ecosystem is lost in the emotional and technical thrill of climbing into (and occasionally falling out of) the 360-foot canopy.Many of us who live and work in the redwood forests know instinctively that this book will encourage others to attempt dangerous climbs into the delicate, untouched world that Sillett and cohorts, through Preston, have unveiled. Others will follow - guerilla climbing is part of the game, Preston reveals - and find their way into the highest branches of these ancient trees seeking only the recreational thrill of great height and athletic accomplishment. Worse still, is the thought of finding their broken bodies lying the bottom of these forever-living giants. This possibility, once generally unconsidered, feels greater now than it did several weeks ago before this book was on the shelves.Read this book, anyway. It is well-written and Preston carries you along for the adventure. Preston's story is engaging, as are his main characters. Though I know some of the story behind the scenes, I was still compelled by his prose to read through to its conclusion. In the end, however, it's unfortunate that the mighty redwoods are a mere backdrop for those daring and curious enough to climb their awesome heights, rather than the centerpiece of this story.

[newsieq · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although I enjoyed Wild Trees, I was expecting a novelist to tell more of a story. Although he gave details about the backgrounds of some interesting scientists -- so those were stories -- there didn't seem to be much else. No beginning, middle, end. No conclusion, just a tapering off. I thought the chapters that featured the author's tree-climbing adventures were out of place. Wild Trees did engender good discussion at my non-fiction readers' group.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great book by Richard Preston. It tells the story of the first people to climb into the canopies of the redwoods. Amazingly no one had tried it prior to the mid-1980s, and only then by amateur rock climbers on a lark. They discovered a rich and vibrant ecosystem and created a whole new field of study. The book intimately retells their careers and lives and discoveries.

[mrtall_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A bit of natural history, a bit of botany, a few profiles of obsessive tree-climbers, and a bit of first-person reportage on climbing, and you've got the essence of this book.The subject matter -- exploring the redwood forests of northwestern California to find the biggest and tallest trees, then climbing them to explore the world of their canopy -- is quirky and fresh, as are the sketches of the people who pursue these aims.The only flaw here is Preston's occasional inability to balance the details of the characters' personal lives with their exploration of the trees -- there was just a bit more of the former than I'd have liked.Never the less, a fascinating look at an almost unknown world. Recommended.

[gmac_11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The best-selling author of The Hot Zone takes a close-up look at the world's tallest trees, the coast redwoods that grow only in the coastal regions of California, and at the previously unknown ecosystem that the trees form high in the air in the forest canopy, profiling the scientists and researchers that study this unique, labyrinthine ecological niche

[bblum_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Story of the obsession of a few men for the coastal redwoods, search for the tallest tree and the rich life found in the canopy of these largest of all trees.

[jpsnow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The tree climbers are an exclusive and sometimes reclusive segment of modern field scientists. Their passion for the rich biodiversity present in the sea above us is brought to life by Preston, who seems to have become a convert in the course of his research. I enjoyed this book as a science topic, as a tale of exploration, and for the personal stories about the explorers who have illuminated the wild life of the big trees during the past 30 years.

[eowyna_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quick read, but vividly told. The first tale of Steve Sillett and Marwood Harriss freeclimbing a redwood to the top made my tummy clench in a vicarious fear of heights. Preston is particularly good at making the experience of climbing immediate and real. He also pulls together the various people who have interacted with these trees and tells their stories. But central to the book is the place of these millennium-old trees. He notes that the ecology of the canopy is one of great biodiversity, but one that becomes more diverse as the whole grove ages, and thus a tree of only 500 years hasn't had a chance to accumulate the full complement of lichens, and ferns, and even epiphytic bushes and trees that a true old-growth forest accumulates. This is a window on time as much as the volume of previously unexplored habitat. But the stories of leaping from tree to tree are still scary. Do you see the two climbers pictured on the cover? I didn't for weeks.

[bookmarque · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought this book VERY choppy and hard to follow then I noticed that my iPod was shuffling things out of order. Bah. So I corrected it and things went smoother, but it still skipped around a lot and could have been better organized. The edition I listened to was an abridgement, so maybe that had an effect. It was a loaner that I ripped to the computer, so what the hell.That being said, I learned a lot. Not only that there is a specialized technique to climbing really big trees complete with its own rules and equipment. There are also people who dedicate their lives to finding the largest tree they can find. Apparently this is not as easy as walking in the woods. Redwood forests are almost impenetrable with brush and treefall and it?s a lot of work to find these mega-groves. But the rewards sound so spectacular. I was enchanted with the descriptions of being in the canopy. It?s a highly intricate, interconnected world of many species adapting to the unique structure of the life of trees. It sounded wondrous and magical and a bit scary. Scary also that they are disappearing. Heartbreaking actually. I?ve always been a sucker for trees. I learned a lot and realize that others love them, too.I was not so enchanted by the character of Steve Sillett. He sounds like an egotistical jerk with very little understanding of how the real world works and a callous disregard for people. Practically he seems helpless and destitute of common sense. Tree-wise he?s brilliant and luckily he?s discovered a way to make it pay. Otherwise I can easily see him as a disillusioned college professor grinding out his existence in some backwater school, desperately looking for publication and affirmation. A right smug little prick.Overall, Preston does a pretty good job of description and characterization. The scene portraying a climber?s plummet to the earth from about 80 feet up was very visceral. He could use some organizational help and also needs to shy away from some of the more sensational language he uses. He strays into tabloid a bit too easily.

[gwendydd · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I found this book to be utterly disappointing. It wasn't at all what I expected it to be. I was hoping to learn a lot about the ecosystem that exists in the canopy of redwood trees. Instead, this book is about the personal lives of the people who first started climbing these trees, the passions that drove them to do this, and the various techniques they learned and developed. The information they actually learned once they got into the trees takes up about 5 pages of the book.Even if I had been interested in the personal lives of the people who first learned to climb trees, I would have found this book annoying. There is basically no organizational structure. There are several main characters, and Preston skips back and forth between their stories, presumably in an attempt to create suspense, but all it does is create confusion. He also jumps around chronologically, which makes things even more confusing.

[bombadillo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

OK, so I've always loved old, tall, and large trees. I expected to skip over the stories of the people to get to the top of the trees and find out how it was done. I did very little of that, however, as the bizarre assortment of misfits who discovered many new redwood giants and figured out how to climb them are quirkily presented by Preston and the book makes a good case without whining about it for tolerating goofballs in our species as well as for preserving the remaining forest giants and their magical canopies. From the amazing first, free climb through a wasps' nest, to love in the canopy, to the fall you will find this book well written, engrossing, spiritual, and occasionally thrilling. The tops of these trees (above 250') open up into a virtual forest of limbs, complete with dirt, blueberries, and plant species endemic to this unique ecosystem, that was unexplored until this hodgepodge of students, botanists, convenience store clerk, et al "discovered" it only about 20 years ago.

[mdkoets · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic read. Puts you right there in the trees, where sane people wouldn't go!

[Suzanne Foley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating and awe inspiring account of one of the most amazing parts of the world. I loved the descriptions of things in the redwood forest that most people would never know about or notice if they were merely hiking.

[Scout Tomyris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A history of discovery, documentation and climbing of redwood trees, mostly in Humboldt County, CA. Starts with biographical stories of the people involved, from childhood. I recently read “The Overstory” a fabulous novel by Richard Powers., organized in a similar fashion. That book is fiction and yet replete with a remarkable number of the same facts about big trees. “The Wild Trees” expands on the science of botany that compelled the people who climbed into the canopy of the tallest trees and discovered the unique ecosystem hidden far over our heads. A favorites of mine include the discovery of huckleberry bushes, other tree species, flying squirrels, salamanders, and an enormous range of lichen, growing hundreds of feet above the ground. This book will serve as resource material for my own exploration of redwoods, as well as inspiration to visit Prairie Creek State Park and the other redwood parks of Northern California.

[mwhel_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm amazed at how recently we as a society have become protective of these majestic trees. Such a small percentage of the old-growth redwoods remains today, and it would have all but vanished by now without the foresight and passion of a very small number of people. The setting of the book is mostly in just the last couple of decades, when daring climbers first entered and started to explore the habitat of these canopies hundreds of feet up in air. The author tells numerous interwoven stories of the characters who pioneered exploration and scientific studies in this realm. Especially interesting are the exploits of those individuals who relentlessly sought out the biggest trees, and others who developed new climbing techniques to explore their upper reaches. Some of these narrowly escaped harrowing circumstances, and a few others weren't so lucky. Overall this book offers a good blend of science, history, adventure and storytelling.

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed the book. It gives some interesting insights to the tall trees which to me are one of the gradest things in the world. In the end it was a little too much about the author Richard Preston

[lxydis-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating topic--especially when it's about the trees--but Preston's writing is annoying, and this needed a ruthless editor. Do we really need all those rather tedious bios of the *parents* of the tree-explorers and how they tragically sit on the porch, smiling through their illness at their delightful children as they scamper up trees? The guys' girlfriends, the mullet and the baggy pants of Michael Taylor or how fat he's getting? The way Preston writes about it, i don't really give a s**t.
Also, apart from the clich?ed romanticizing of the geeks and their relationships (the, presumably fictionalized, conversations between them sound like a cheap novel rather than reporting) Preston has an irritating habit of defining something and then repeating it in sentence, which is annoyingly jerky as well as patronizing. E.g. "when a climber falls on a belay rope, it's called a 'whipper'. Steve took a huge whipper from the top of a tree." This sounds like a grade-school reading primer! A better writer (and editor) would say something like "Steve had taken a huge whipper of a fall from the top of a tree before the belay rope caught him."
The memorable article in the New Yorker which was an excerpt of this book was tighter and MUCH better. This book makes one long for John McPhee's elegant and erudite prose.
PS I listened to the audio version of this book, and the wooden, unrhythmic reader certainly did it no favors, though I think he must have been somewhat hampered by Preston's prose. I eventually had to switch to the book, which, being more skimmable, was bearable.

[dogrover · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A scatter-shot series of intimacies, by turns awkward and magical. Preston's narrative is captivating when on-topic, and maddening when not.If you have ever been to the redwoods, and stopped for even a moment to consider what you're looking at, you will find something fascinating here. There are hidden cathedrals, groves rooted in earth that has never touched the ground, sun-drenched huckleberry bushes 300 feet off the forest floor, and tiny shrimp-things swimming blissfully where no river has ever reached.The many digressions, though, reveal the author's struggle to focus. While interesting in their own right, lichens, relationship trouble, eucalyptus groves in Australia, and an unrelated character surviving a fall from an unrelated tree all lessen the impact of this unrealized work of beauty.