Limber pine hike and thoughts on bonsai

[Tycoss]

I went up for a hike to the limber pines near the tree line in the Alberta Rockies. Some old stunted specimens with lots of character and some implications that I want to apply to future collected pines.

Firstly, there were lots of interesting windswept trees. These usually had multiple ascending trunks and live veins only on the sheltered side. Some of the dead windswept trees looked quite dramatic as well:

 

[Tycoss]

One thing I noticed that I've not seen in bonsai are trees where only the upper parts of the crown were strongly wind influenced:

 

[PonderingSage:]

Looks like a good spot. Definitely some inspiration being out in the wild.

 

[Mike Westervelt]

Beautiful alpine scenery, thank you for sharing.
Some great inspiration there for sure..

 

[Potawatomi13]

Love these places.

 

[Tycoss]

Another characteristic of a lot of these trees that might be interesting (although difficult) to explore in bonsai is the "basal thicket" of healthy branches that are protected by snow cover in the winter. These often have a much sparser crown extending above them, often looking like the trees have shrubs growing around the base.
You notice I posted pictures of some whole trees including the "basal thicket" and the crowns which are often more rugged looking.

 

[Tycoss]

Deadwood is generally wind blasted and bleached, but can also be hollow. It contrasts less than similar junipers with the live veins, but is still beautiful

 

[Potawatomi13]

Curious if all pines there were Limber? Reason being seeing bark possibly Whitebark, and other maybe Lodgepole? Collect any cones by chance? Blew up pics 500% but could not get detail desired for ID. Were Clarks Nutcrackers there?

 

[Tycoss]

Clarks nutcrackers were certainly there. Some of the trees were definitely lodgepole. I didn't see any white bark cones. Most of the 5 needle pines were definitely limbers, but there may have been some exceptions

 

[Tycoss]

There were definitely some interesting lodgepole pines where the soil was a bit thicker. The darker bark is a cool contrast to the deadwood, and the darker foliage is distinctive.

 

[Tycoss]

There were also lots of subalpine fir and englemann spruce. These had some interesting interplay between dead and live branches, and were often "flagging" in windswept areas:

 

[Tycoss]

Here are a few pines that I just found particularly cool, and some nice powerful bases:

 

[Potawatomi13]

Great trees. Thanks. A miserable existence they survive.

 

[RomanticShears]

The basal thickets are called "krummholz"