Crump, crump, crump. Barbara Powell’s footsteps crunch through a thin layer of powder into firmly packed snow beneath, each stride sending a quiet shatter through the stillness that exists only at elevation. Sound travels differently up here. 

Everything in Powell’s movement is aligned: cadence steady, breathing smooth, arms swinging — all in a metronome of warming effort as she runs through the bitter cold.

Breath plumes from her mouth and disappears sideways in the chilling wind. In high-elevation forests, there is little shelter from the elements — something Powell has come not just to respect, but to find comfort in.

“Trail running has given me this opportunity to respect what Mother Nature has laid out for that day whether it’s the terrain, the weather or the conditions of the trail itself,” Powell says. “It’s given me a place that allows my body to feel at home.”

Today, this rhythm carries her along the slopes of Washington’s Cascades Mountains. There are no crowds, no traffic, no hum of city life — only a runner, small against the immensity, yet fully alive within it. It’s a feeling that highlights the restorative quality of nature.

A high-altitude hero

Across the American West, for runners cresting a ridgeline, cyclists grinding up a mountain pass, or families hiking through a national park, whitebark pine is often part of the view. But whether they recognize the tree or not, they certainly feel its presence. These spaces are commonly, and endearingly, referred to as magical.

“There’s something about coming to the higher elevation, to be surrounded by something like the whitebark pine, that truly does feel magical, mystical,” Powell says. “The whitebark pine has this way of drawing you in — this energetic pulse as well as a silence that the body just wants to be a part of.”

But whitebark pine is more than scenery. It is a keystone species holding the entire high-mountain ecosystem together. Its canopy slows snowmelt, regulating water that flows into rivers supplying drinking water for millions downstream. Its fat-rich seeds sustain more than 20 wildlife species, including Clark’s nutcrackers, squirrels and grizzly bears. Its presence stabilizes fragile alpine soils and shelters young trees in harsh conditions.

And yet, across its range, whitebark pine is in crisis. The invasive white pine blister rust fungus, climate change, shifting wildfire patterns and mountain pine beetles have decimated populations. Scientists estimate hundreds of millions of whitebark pines have been lost. In 2022, the species was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

If whitebark pine disappears, the change will ripple far beyond the mountaintop. For athletes and recreationists, it would mean something else, too: the quiet unraveling of the landscapes that challenge and restore them.

A reason to care

High-mountain ecosystems have always asked much of those who enter them: grit, humility, endurance. Powell knows these demands well. She has lived and trained at altitude, learning how thin air reshapes breath and how weather can turn in an instant. Preparation for races like the Leadville 100, which Powell has competed in twice in support of Life Time Foundation, requires more than fitness — it requires an intimacy with nature.

As a trail runner, you engage with the landscape in a much more intimate way,” she says. “These landscapes where whitebark pine live are the very places that athletes like myself go to be challenged.”

That intimacy fosters awareness. And awareness fosters care.

“When you are hiking or running, you’re able to look up, look around you and realize that each and every species, including the whitebark pine, is part of this interconnected ecosystem that all depends upon each other,” Powell says. “And then you realize that you showing up into that ecosystem gives you an opportunity to interact with it, to appreciate it, to be a part of its story. When we’re up close to and notice nature on a very deeply intimate level, that’s when we start to care about it.”

But high-elevation forests are not just where athletes go to be humbled, they are where families make core memories. Where children learn what silence sounds like. Where busy lives pause long enough to breathe. 

“Nature brings so many core memories of my own childhood and memories that I want to experience with my own children,” says Sarah Emola, senior director of Life Time Foundation. “I think that it provides such a beautiful, natural playground for everyone for all of us to learn, grow and have these wonderful experiences.”

Beyond serving as a backdrop to cherished memories, time in nature for athletes and recreationists is about well-being.

“There’s so much that can be said about enhancing your own health just by getting outside and breathing the fresh air,” Emola says. “It definitely has a calming presence, and it’s such an important part of wellness.” 

Those intrinsic benefits are exactly why people who recreate, compete, vacation or even step foot in these high-mountain landscapes should care about the whitebark pine and its role in greater ecosystem health.

For Life Time Foundation, that connection between personal wellness and planetary health is central to its mission and supported through the Foundation’s Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Healthy Way of Life initiative. Specifically, the Healthy Planet pillar recognizes that clean air, resilient forests and functioning ecosystems are not luxuries — they are prerequisites for human well-being.

“I think our community, our members, our athletes that participate in all of our athletic events, have a particular love for nature and for the amazing spaces that we have outside,” Emola says. “We know so clearly that we can’t have healthy people without a healthy planet.”

A mirrored holistic approach

Just as Life Time Foundation focuses on supporting a holistic approach to wellness, American Forests’ approach to conservation and restoration is equally encompassing. 

The work of restoring whitebark pine is painstaking and science-driven: identifying trees with natural resistance to blister rust, collecting cones during a narrow ripening window, cultivating seedlings, testing direct seeding methods in remote terrain, and collaborating across sectors and jurisdictions. 

For Valeria La Rosa, program director for Life Time Foundation, it’s about supporting the type of work that goes beyond simply putting trees in the ground.

“I think American Forests looks at the problem from so many directions,” La Rosa says. “They are not just going and planting a tree. You have to get to the root of the problem. You have to get creative. You have to work collaboratively. I really do believe that type of approach is key if we are going to solve this problem in a sustainable way.”

That holistic approach is precisely why Life Time Foundation supports American Forests. By partnering with American Forests, the Foundation is supporting systematic solutions to a healthier planet, not just for today, but for tomorrow. 

“We aren’t peeling off one layer of the surface and creating a solution for that problem,” Emola says. “We’re going deep. We are finding systematic solutions to problems to not only fix what we need to fix right now for this generation, but for generations to come.”

For a community of recreationists and endurance athletes who understand long horizons that long view resonates.

What’s at stake

Imagine a ridgeline stripped of its ancient silhouettes. Slopes where snow melts too fast, wildlife search tirelessly for food, and trails feel altered — less shaded and less alive.

“We’re so removed from these spaces when we’re in the city,” La Rosa says. “It’s easy to forget what’s happening up here.”

Yet what happens up high does not stay there. Water flowing from whitebark pine ecosystems nourishes communities far below. Wildlife disruptions cascade. Climate resilience weakens.

And something harder to quantify is lost: the magic.

That sense of awe — the reason so many athletes chase summits and forested trails — depends on living systems that are intact. And it’s a wake-up call to ensure they remain that way.

“When we access that experience of awe, it draws us out from the little things that might bog us down as runners and hikers,” Powell says. “It draws us away from the data, the numbers and the miles, and it draws us into something that is magical. It’s bigger than us and gives us this opportunity to enjoy it in a way that really pulls us to want to take care of it.”

For Powell, that call to action begins simply: Learn the story. Pay attention. Notice the trees.

From there, action can take many forms: volunteering, fundraising, choosing race partners committed to sustainability, supporting organizations doing science-based restoration, advocating for conservation.

Life Time Foundation’s support of American Forests is one example of what that commitment can look like at scale — aligning a wellness-driven community with landscape-level restoration.

“For us, the right thing now is to invest in these very important projects so that the entire ecosystem that the whitebark pine is part of doesn’t cease to exist,” La Rosa says. “It has to happen, and it has to happen now. It’s urgent.”

Conserving and restoring whitebark pine is not only about saving a species, it is about protecting the iconic landscapes that test us, restore us and remind us who we are.

And for runners like Powell, and many others, that is a finish line worth chasing.