The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West

With their towering, cinnamon-colored trunks and dusky green canopies, ponderosa pine has long been a charismatic icon of the American West. Yet a quiet unraveling has begun: in the past decade, in a vast area from Santa Fe to the Sierras, more than two hundred million ponderosa have died. While some trees will survive in cooler places, scientists estimate that by mid-century less than five percent of the ponderosa in the American Southwest may remain. As the very character of this vast region shifts, what will be left behind? And how can we come to terms with such profound loss?

In The Twilight Forest, Gary Ferguson brings readers on an expansive journey through the ponderosa forests of the Southwest both to mourn--and to celebrate--the forests that nurtured him. In warm and luminous storytelling, Ferguson weaves together the human and natural history of ponderosa, from its march across the West more than 10,000 years ago, to centuries of artists inspired by its dazzling stature and shady passageways. Both wildfire and climate change are constant presences on this journey. Fire is necessary for healthy forests but has turned deadly, while climate change stresses even the hardiest beings of the natural world. Yet the story of ponderosa reminds us that loss can be a gateway to connection--to nature and each other.

While it is tempting to hide from the changes around us, Ferguson offers a healing approach: "to pick even one of these thousand doors of loss, pull it open and walk through." The resulting journey is a life-affirming tribute to one of America's most cherished wild landscapes.


Author: Gary Ferguson
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 10/16/2025
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781642833423


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/01/2025 pg. 93
Booklist 09/01/2025

About the Author
Award-winning author Gary Ferguson has written for a variety of national publications, including Vanity Fair and Outside, and is the author of twenty-seven books on nature and science. His memoir The Carry Home, which the Los Angeles Times called "gorgeous, with beauty on every page," was awarded "Best Nature Book of the Year" by the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. Hawks Rest--described as "dazzling" by The San Francisco Chronicle--was the first title to win the Best Book award from both the Mountains and Plains and the Pacific Northwest booksellers associations. Decade of the Wolf, meanwhile, written with Yellowstone wolf project director Doug Smith, was Montana Book of the Year. Gary's 2016 article "A Deeper Boom," for Orion magazine, was chosen "Best Essay of the Year" by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Gary is a frequent keynote speaker on a variety of conservation issues, as well as a former member of the National Geographic Lecture Series.