Cilan Forest

Cilan forest in Yilan, Taiwan. It's an ancient forest at around 1600m above sea level. The oldest known tree is about 2500 years old. There were plenty of older and much bigger trees but the Japanese chopped down most of them when they colonized Taiwan, which left the mountain almost bare. These trees grow at an extremely slow rate, about a few centimeters a year in height, and 0.5cm in width. A one year old tree is like a little sprout standing at just 1.5cm tall. Reforestation started in the 40s after the Japs lost the war and left. Most trees are still mid sized and will take many more years to grow big, but at least the mountain is well covered in green now.

First shot is star trail. It was hard to find a clear sky without light pollution. There were street lamps all over the place. I found an opening. The trees were lit by the street lights.
The trails break up in the middle because the clouds came in half way and left. The shots taken in the middle of the session had to be worked on to preserve as much of the trails as possible. It's a stacked photo of 10X5min exposure.