This episode first aired in October 2025.
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 5% of the ponderosa in the American Southwest may remain. "The Twilight Forest" asks: 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?
Award-winning author Gary Ferguson has written for a variety of national publications, including Vanity Fair and Outside, and is the author of 27 books on nature and science. His memoir "The Carry Home" was awarded Best Nature Book of the Year by the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute. "Hawks Rest" 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," written with Yellowstone wolf project director Doug Smith, was Montana Book of the Year.
