The tree that I’ve come to think of as “our cypress” may have already been there when the Chowanoac people arrived and settled along the shores of Albemarle Sound. When some of our local residents signed the Declaration of Independence, our cypress was more than 1,500 years old. Humans in all of our complexity are but a paragraph in the tales that trees can tell.

While the Appalachian Trail isn’t home to any tree as old as our local cypress, hikers know that it does have its fair share of massive and very old trees that also managed to avoid being logged off or burned down in a forest fire. Some of those trees have names — the Keffer Oak, the Dover Oak — but most are just really big trees we look at in amazement.

Over the years we’ve given these sorts of trees impressive names like “champion trees” or “witness trees.” But those names don’t really encompass the way such trees make us feel when we’re in their presence. Witness trees are especially important to Indigenous and Black history in the Appalachian region, because they stand as living archives of the experiences of people whose histories have been filled with injustice and lack the fullness of the archival record of European settlement. For example, anthropologists seeking evidence of the Indigenous presence in the Appalachian Mountains often look for groves of walnut or hickory trees that shouldn’t otherwise be there. (It’s important to note that the term “witness tree” is also used extensively in A.T. management. These trees are marked with yellow boundary paint at measured distances from survey monuments and are used to locate the protected property boundary of the A.T.)

This year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, so it seemed like a good moment to reflect on why we are so fascinated by trees that pre-date the founding of America. To get to the root of the question (pun intended), I recently asked Robert Moor, a 2009 thru-hiker and the author of a new book, In Trees, what it is about these behemoths that inspires such awe.

“When I stand in front of a very old tree, I feel connected to the deep past and the distant future all at once,” shared Rob. “The sheer trippiness of it — hundreds or even thousands of years of history, bound up in living wood — creates a sense of awe, and that awe then gives me a fierce desire to protect it. Grandiose as it might sound, in those moments I feel like I am experiencing nothing less than the meaning of life itself: to help foster the flourishing of living beings throughout time. What else is there, really?”

After talking to Rob, I decided to do just that — go and stand in front of a very old tree along the Trail to contemplate its life and all that it has witnessed. The Keffer Oak near Blacksburg, Virginia — often thought of as the second-oldest tree along the A.T. — was the closest option for me these days, so I drove to a parking area less than a mile south of the tree on a beautiful early spring afternoon and hiked up the A.T. for a visit.

The Keffer Oak is just as impressive as advertised. With a trunk girth of 74.8 inches — making its trunk circumference 235 inches! — and a crown spread of 116 feet, it is a truly massive tree. At an estimated 300 years old, it is just a puppy compared to the cypress on my street. Being there under its branches felt a bit like being in a cathedral. There is still something about it that makes you want to whisper in its presence.

While I was photographing the Keffer Oak, a hiker named Charlotte stopped by the big, old tree. When I asked her why she wanted to see it, she told me that for her it was really interesting to think about how many people must have seen the tree through the centuries and what happened near the tree during all those years.

Shawnee, Cherokee, and Monican Native Americans would have passed close by when the oak was just a sapling. As it grew and spread its wings, Scottish and German settlers came to the valleys of Western Virginia, clearing land and establishing farms on what had been Indigenous homelands. And for just over 100 years, hikers have passed right by the tree on the A.T., many of them stopping to snap a picture next to its massive trunk or to camp under its canopy.

The Dover Oak in New York is even larger — it currently claims the status of the largest tree along the Appalachian Trail and is possibly the oldest, with a reputed age of more than 300 years. The Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago, and two years after that, George Washington’s army encampment was camped nearby, holding the British army in New York City. That week, the Dover Oak may have already been 50 years old.

But this grand tree is threatened. Look closely at the photos and you’ll see that it sits right next to a paved roadway that compacts its roots and hinders its access to fresh water and nutrients. Maybe that’s why it seems to inspire hikers to give it a hug, at least based on all the hiker photos and videos you can find online. Over the years I’ve seen lots of images of hikers hugging the Dover Oak and, frankly, thought they were a little overdone — that is until I visited the Keffer Oak.

These days, the Keffer Oak also looks like it needs a hug. A number of its massive branches, many of them the diameter of mid-sized trees, have fallen or been trimmed and the trunk is home to a large population of black carpenter ants who are surely feasting on its pulp. Seeing that damage and deterioration, I had this overwhelming urge to do something, anything to help. But, of course, trees have their own life cycles, their own ways of being, and part of their role in the forest is to provide homes to insects, birds, and small mammals. When a tree dies, as so many are doing along the Trail these days, its death gives life to the forest. Woodpeckers find meals beneath the bark. Owls and squirrels nest in holes begun by the woodpeckers. Chipmunks burrow into and under fallen trunks, and bears, skunks, and porcupines tear at the bark of those fallen trees to find insects and their larvae.

Human activity, a rapidly changing climate, and non-native invasive pests and pathogens are making it more and more difficult for trees to reach the ripe old ages of the Dover and Keffer Oaks. Biologists now know that trees are much more persistent than we once understood. Trees find ways and their survival strategies include a complex communication system that they use to warn one another of impending threats and to nurture saplings struggling to get established nearby.

To me, the most inspiring example of just how determined, how persistent trees can be is the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata). Once the dominant species along the spine of the Appalachians, three to four billion of those beautiful keystone trees died in just a few decades from a fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica) brought to North American through ornamental plants in the early 1900s. Only a handful of mature chestnut trees exist east of the Mississippi these days, but if you know where to look when you hike on the Appalachian Trail, you can see dozens, even hundreds of immature trees in a single day.

Those baby chestnut trees spring from subterranean root balls, some of which must be many hundreds of years old. When those saplings begin to mature, their bark splits through a natural process of growth and when it does, that gives the fungus its opportunity to attack, killing the tree quickly. But as soon as the sapling dies, the root system sends up a new candidate which then spends several years sending nourishment and energy back down into the root system. Then the death/life/death cycle begins all over again, a process that has been repeating itself since the earliest days of the A.T.

Maybe that’s one reason we love old trees like the Dover Oak and the Keffer Oak. They remind us that for all the damage we are doing to the ecosystems of the Appalachian Mountains, nature finds a way to keep going. It’s all too easy to succumb to climate despair right now. Every day it seems that a new study is published that warns us of another climate tipping point passed.

According to ATC conservation staff, there are little things we can all do that can add up to a truly meaningful impact. “Learn to identify and support the trees around your home and in your neighborhood, so they may in turn support the many other plants and animals that depend on them for forage, shelter, and resources,” suggests Marian Orlousky, the ATC Director of Science and Stewardship. “Prioritize planting native trees, shrubs, and flowers around your home, which will help bring resiliency to the local ecosystem.” Dan Hale — ATC Senior Natural Resource and Land Stewardship Manager, New England — adds, “It’s also helpful to learn to identify and remove ecologically disruptive introduced species. For example, removing Asian bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) vines that are climbing and covering a tree can help to keep that tree alive.”

And the trees, at least, can give us hope. As Susan Freinkel put it to me, “It’s amazing to think of a being that has the intelligence to survive through so many years and adapt to so many different conditions.”

Even so, on that early spring day in Virginia, I waited for Charlotte to continue on her hike back toward the parking area, and once she was out of sight, I gave the Keffer Oak a hug. Just in case it might help.