Regarding the lonely tree: how did this tree come to be so alone and what happened to all its brothers and sisters? Were they all burnt out in some brush fire, leaving a lucky but lonely survivor? The tree seems quite old which also begs a few questions. Perhaps climate change caused the hill to get colder and all the younger trees died out. I remember a friend who went to Niger or was it Mali, and told me about a lonely tree in the Tenere desert which was 300 miles from the next tree. Apparently climate change wiped out all the other trees except one.