This last summer my grandson Josh and I took off to climb Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48. His success, and my failure, were recounted in an earlier post, so we'll not repeat my embarrassment. But the Whitney ascent begins with a nice, fairly moderate wooded trail. In my ignorance, I assumed the rest of the trail would be as easy. But like the pic of the trail shows, relatively soon the timberline took over, an altitude too high for trees to grow, and few plants of any kind. The woods gave way to ...