Parched ponderosas and other bits and pieces

Ponderosa pine in a Utah canyon. Does it smell like butterscotch? Or vanilla? Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Butterscotch? Vanilla? Or parched Pinus ponderosa? 

If you happen to be hiking down a high-desert canyon on a scorching summer’s day and encounter a towering, girthy ponderosa pine, its gnarled roots reaching out into the sand and the cracks in the s…