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As the sun sets over Eagle Lake, a crew boss rides his quad through the forest. The terrain here is rugged, far from paved roads or modern comforts, but the rewards include views like this. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cYou only get a few weeks,\u201d John Wayne Strauch, whom everyone calls Bambi, told me. A wild Christmas tree harvester for 50 years, he owns more than 300 acres of timber rights on Worley Mountain, between Eagle Lake and Susanville, California. It\u2019s hard work: \u201cIf the ground doesn\u2019t freeze, the needles won\u2019t set,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it snows early, you\u2019re done.\u201d And it\u2019s a race against time, with only a limited number of days before the crews are snowed off the mountain. \u201cWhy are we doing this?\u201d Strauch said. \u201cGuys are barely breaking even \u2026 but we just keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Strauch first came here in the early \u201970s with my godfather, Joe McNally. Both were new to the business and looking for adventure. They learned from their failures, hauling broken trucks out of snowdrifts, watching trees vanish under sudden storms, fingers stiff with cold and frustration. Every winter, they returned with the same mission: to bring a piece of wilderness into people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n Now, Strauch relies on mostly migrant Mexican workers who travel north each winter, many of them fresh off orchards or vineyards. This year, according to Dan Barker, who helps oversee the harvest, dramatic shifts in immigration policy and increasing danger from ICE raids have brought new uncertainty to the work.<\/p>\n Typically, two crews \u2014 about 18 men altogether \u2014 form the backbone of the operation: a cook, two drivers, two cutters, a bail operator, with the rest hauling trees from deep in the forest. They rotate roles and move quickly, slicing and dragging silvertips down steep ridgelines, where they\u2019re graded for shape, symmetry and color: 2s, 1s, primos and double primos, each priced accordingly. This year, an 8-foot double primo will likely sell for around $250 on the lot, while a 2 of the same size would bring in about half that.<\/p>\n \u201cThe better we take care of the trees, the better they take care of us.\u201d<\/p>\n The harvest relies on a practice called coppicing or stump culturing, a careful cut that allows a tree\u2019s base to regenerate. Within a few years, one of the remaining branches receives internal signals and turns toward the sun, growing into a new tree that can be harvested again and again. \u201cWe\u2019re not clear-cutting,\u201d Strauch said. \u201cThe better we take care of the trees, the better they take care of us. Some, we\u2019ll get five, 10 harvests. Those are the mothers.\u201d The forest renews itself without replanting, tilling or spraying in a simple, sustainable cycle that has kept these slopes producing for decades.<\/p>\n Strauch\u2019s Worley Mountain stand yields roughly 7,000 trees each year, and it is one of the nation\u2019s last commercial wild Christmas tree harvests. It\u2019s small-scale compared to farmed Christmas tree operations, but its value lies in silvertips\u2019 rarity, sustainability and the relationship between land and labor. \u201cThese are beautiful trees with a beautiful story,\u201d Barker said. \u201cWe don\u2019t just want people to accept them \u2014 we want them to love them like we do.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n We welcome reader letters. Email\u00a0High Country News\u00a0at\u00a0editor@hcn.org<\/a>\u00a0or submit a\u00a0letter to the editor<\/a>. See our\u00a0letters to the editor policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article appeared in the\u00a0December 2025\u00a0print edition of the magazine<\/a>\u00a0with the headline\u00a0\u201cWild Harvest.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Spread the word. News organizations can pick-up\u00a0quality news, essays\u00a0and feature stories for free.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n![\"Climate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_7.jpg\")
Climate change is impacting both the forest and the people who work in it. Extreme early-season heat scorched thousands of young trees in May and June, burning new growth before it could mature. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_3.jpg\")
A cutter fells a 40-foot red fir without breaking its branches by using wedge and relief cuts to guide the tree gently to the ground. The cuts are made above the base, leaving several whorls of branches to regenerate, in a process called stump culturing. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a>\n<\/p>\n![\"At](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_5-scaled.jpg\")
At 80 years old, John Wayne Strauch \u2014 \u201cBambi\u201d to his friends \u2014 clears away undergrowth so his crews have room to work. After five decades, he remains a steward of a rural tradition: harvesting wild Christmas trees. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_2.jpg\")
A worker carries a freshly cut silvertip down the slopes of Haight Mountain, at about 7,500 feet above sea level. Each silvertip is hauled by hand through dense brush. This forest, once a thriving stand, was burned in the 2021 Antelope Fire, one of many blazes that have reshaped Northern California\u2019s landscape. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_4.jpg\")
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\nA worker stands beside a tagging box mounted to a baling trailer (left). Each tree is graded by shape, color and branch density, then tagged according to height with color-coded labels. An 8-to-9-foot red fir varies widely in price according to its grade, part of a meticulous system connecting high-country forests to living rooms hundreds of miles away; Freshly cut red firs lie stacked and ready for shipment (right). Within days, they\u2019ll be loaded onto trucks and sent to tree lots across the West, marking the end of another short, hard season in the high country. The red firs, known as silvertips, are cut only after enough freezing nights have passed to \u201cset\u201d their needles, a unique trait that keeps them from dropping well into March. Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_8.jpg\")
A full moon rises over a high-elevation forest on Worley Mountain between Eagle Lake and Susanville, California. Crews often work into the dark, cutting and sorting Christmas trees by headlamp and truck lights. The silvertip trees in the foreground show the results of stump culturing, which ensures sustainable harvests for years to come. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wild-harvest-57-12_10.jpg\")
A full moon rises over a high-elevation forest on Worley Mountain between Eagle Lake and Susanville, California. Crews often work into the dark, cutting and sorting Christmas trees by headlamp and truck lights. The silvertip trees in the foreground show the results of stump culturing, which ensures sustainable harvests for years to come. Credit: Allen Myers\/High Country News<\/a><\/p>\n
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