Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Davis

Title of entry: An Extreme Tree Hunt in the Sierra Nevada

About this entry: UC Davis forest ecologist Hugh Safford stumbled upon California’s highest-altitude tree, a Jeffrey pine, in the High Sierra in 2024, and vowed to return to untangle the mystery of how it got there and what it reveals about a changing climate. When he and a team of UC Davis researchers returned in the summer of 2025, hiking more than 240 miles and climbing 24 peaks in search of high-elevation Jeffrey pines, writer Kat Kerlin accompanied them for four days to document their journey and the significance of their findings for forest ecosystems and the species that depend on them.