Sierra lodgepole pine

My confidence in you-can't-miss-it directions took another blow last winter on my quest for the co-champion Sierra lodgepole pine. "It's easy to find, " a ranger with the San Bernardino National Forest told me, "because there's a sign right next to it." After an uphill, five-mile ski, I arrived at the designated "X" on my map and found a big lodgepole pine.

Suddenly, I knew that I had photographed the right tree, or at least all but the bottom four or five feet of it; the sign, along with the base of the champion Sierra lodgepole pine, had simply been covered by snow.