Silver Forest – Emmons Vista Trail

This route offers a perfect chance to see and experience a “silver forest” and to provide kids a learning experience as well. These stands of bright white trees can be found throughout the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the everpresent threat of wildfire. The silver forests are the standing skeletons of trees that were lashed by fast-moving, intensely hot forest fires. When the fires are hot enough and moving fast enough, they kill the trees and scorch many of the limbs and bark off but don’t devour the entire trunk. As a result, entire forests are left standing, though they are dead and stripped of their “skin.” Within a couple of years, the standing trunks are bleached white by exposure to the sun and wind, resulting in a shadowy stand of gray ghosts: the silver forest. When one of these shining woods is seen against a backdrop of emerald green meadows, brilliant blue skies, and a massive white mountain, the effect is amazing. You’d never think a dead forest could look so beautiful and vibrant. But that’s just what you’ll find here.