At 8 o'clock in the morning, Tucson was already heating up as we left for Mount Lemmon. In the cooler mountain air, Jose “Pepe” Iniguez from the UA Tree Ring Lab explained how he correlates tree rings to climactic patterns to estimate the age of a tree. He also described the different types of plants that live within a certain elevation ranges. The Saguaro cacti quickly gave way to trees as we traveled up the mountain. The types of trees also change: blue oak (sometimes also called gray oak) looks very similar to white oak, but only white oak is found at higher elevations.

Kate Hodges, artist and UA MFA student, collaborated with Pepe to sculpt several fire-scarred trees, now located outside Life Sciences South. She explained the inspiration behind her project. She was fascinated to see the resilience of trees, which she compared to the strength of the human spirit.

Then, we began to hike.

Charred trees from the devastating fire in 2003 filled large patches of the mountain; those that had survived bore telltale fire scars. When a side of the tree burns, the rest of the tree grows around the wound; this creates a "curling" effect. I was amazed to see firsthand how the trees had adapted to this natural disaster.

During the hike, Pepe showed us how to core a tree, which allows the tree rings to be analyzed without removing a large section of the tree. The core sample is then dried in a straw-like paper wrapper before the Tree Ring Lab analyzes it. Unfortunately, Pepe missed the pith, or center of the tree, so he was unable to use the sample.

Swarms of ladybugs greeted us at the top of the mountain, but our glee quickly wore off after the first few ladybug bites. We ate lunch with the ladybugs (and several other insect varieties) before hiking down the mountain.

Kathryn O’Dell, Visiting UBRPer from Berry College, Georgia, is working in Dr. Marilyn Halonen’s lab, Pharmacology