Leath Tonino

As a kid in Vermont, I liked climbing trees, but no more than I liked climbing rocks, snowbanks, mountains, furniture, and flag poles. It's only in my so-called adulthood that I've become rather obsessed with the forest canopy: the immersion in leaves and needles, the relief (pun!) that comes with a temporary vacation from the "regular world" down below. I've written about redwoods in the urban heart of San Francisco, aspens in the Colorado backcountry, ponderosa pines at the Grand Canyon's North Rim, the familiar sugar maples of my Northeastern childhood. Editors keep buying my stories of monkeying around – or should I say primating around, humaning around? – and so I keep pitching new ones. What's next? Maybe an araucaria in Chile, a ginko in Japan? Maybe the snag full of beetles and bats that stands tall and gray at the end of a dirt road near my house? I'm excited to find out!