Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... [ ♪♪♪ ] MAN: My rappel!

MAN: Oh, my gosh, it's beautiful.

MAN: Good morning, everybody.

Woo!

Let's do it again!

MAN: Nicely done!

MAN: Oh, yeah!

Fourteen and a half.

Yes, that was awesome!

[ people cheering ] There you go, up, up... ED JAHN: Next, on Oregon Field Guide: Sometimes a tree is not just a tree but is instead a work of art.

Then, with a photographer's eye, the Oregon Painted Hills come alive.

But first, a mysterious craft floats above Oregon's High Desert.

What is it and what can it tell us?

Imagine standing out in the High Desert when you see a large object fall to the earth.

What would you do?

Well, there's an Oregon aerospace crew that's going to go to great lengths to bring that object back.

You need another hand up there?

It's 4 a.m. and 28 degrees on the High Desert.

MAN: We started around 11 p.m., and it'll take us all the way up to about 6 a.m.

Dawn is the target launch time, the moment this crew from Near Space Corporation has been working towards for months.

Okay, now we need to get some balloon out.

In this flat form, the balloon doesn't look like much.

But once inflated, it'll be more than 50 stories high, six times larger than the average hot-air balloon.

Keep an eye on that inflation tube, Mark.

It will carry precious cargo from the European Space Agency, or ESA, into the stratosphere to test the parachute system of a new Mars rover.

That is, if the weather holds.

MAN: It's the little things you have to be very careful about.

As this envelope comes up, it'll be over 600 feet off the ground but still anchored to the ground, so we can't have any winds crossing or sudden gusts.

The force will be extreme, and it could cost us the whole balloon envelope.

Got it?

Okay.

In this business, there's not much room for error.

Poor weather has already scrubbed the balloon launch two different nights, and the pressure to get the important payload into the air is building.

We're going to clear the hose, hold the hose away from you.

-Yep.

-Right?

The ESA module being tested over Madras is much smaller than the one that'll go to Mars, but it's weighted to produce the same extreme force on the parachute when it's deployed.

On Mars, there's not nearly as much atmosphere as there is here on Earth.

Therefore, for parachutes, there's less atmosphere to grab.

On Earth, we have to go to much, much higher altitudes where the densities are the same.

Balloons are an elegant way to get to the altitudes we need.

The balloon will carry the module nearly 20 miles up before releasing it over Oregon's High Desert.

Make sure it's on it, make sure we got our safety on it, our whip.

KEVIN: Right now we're checking things again and again and making sure everything's all set, and then we just need the weather to hold.

Has there ever been life on Mars?

It's a question we've pondered for a long time.

MAN: I remember I was a kid, and I was watching the Viking mission and waiting to hear about the Martians, the yellow-green characters that never came.

Any life on Mars will likely be more microbe than Martian, and ESA's Mars rover will use a drill to look for evidence of that life below ground.

When looking at the evolution of the planets, looking at Mars will probably tell us quite some interesting things about the possible evolution even of the Earth.

But before the rover can go to work, the module must first land safely on the surface of the planet.

It will do this using a series of braking maneuvers that include one of the largest parachutes ever deployed.

So this big parachute is the one that we are testing here in Madras, Oregon.

The predictable high-altitude winds around Madras mean the parachute will fall in the vast sagebrush sea, far from any communities.

Dawn, and the crew is in position for inflation.

[ gas hissing ] KEVIN: Uh, the weather's looking pretty good.

We'll start running helium, and then it runs up these inflation tubes, and we'll start inflating the main bubble of the balloon.

[ compressor hissing ] MAN: Very good, very good, very good!

The balloon will only be partially filled because the gas inside will expand as it rises.

KEVIN: Every 10,000 feet, that volume doubles.

So the balloon that started looking kind of like a somewhat not very full bag, once it's up at 100,000 feet looks like a stretched-out balloon.

[ geese honking ] Quiet descends as the flow of gas stops.

The moment the crew has been working towards has finally come.

[ man exclaims ] MAN [ over radio ]: This is CC, can you tell me what your ascent rate is?

MAN [ over PA ]: Current ascent rate is 1,080 feet per minute.

The balloon picks up speed as it rises into the winter blue sky.

As the communications crew at the airport tracks the balloon's flight, another team on the ground about two hours downwind picks up the trail.

It's coming this way.

Yeah, I've got it here on a map.

You can see right now it's east of Prineville, not to far from the Ochocos.

Jake Young is leading the team that will track down and recover the parachute and module in the desert.

When we terminate the flight, the pieces will come apart and we'll be able to track each piece as they separate.

What we're hoping to go out and find is a nice, pristine parachute and a test vehicle that's intact and some good data.

Near Space has also brought in a few local sportsmen to lend their expertise.

We've been all over this area.

We kind of speak the language.

So being able to talk to landowners and things like that kind of comes in handy when, you know, something lands in their backyard and they don't know what it is.

Central Oregon is a near perfect place for this kind of aerospace testing because of its remoteness and relatively consistent weather.

But the flight crew still doesn't want anything they send up to come down on private property.

If the balloon rises too fast or too slow, it could drastically change where the pieces land, meaning Jake's crew has to stay nimble.

[ chuckles ] That's right, fluid.

[ laughs ] I think that's the next level up from "nimble."

Sam, we've got a visual.

SAM [ over radio ]: Copy.

JAKE: It's quite a ways away, but we've got it.

MAN [ over radio ]: Yes, we have FAA approval.

They're going to release at 9:41.

One minute to release.

MAN: All right, sending payload fire now.

I see payload release.

Affirmative.

Everything is falling away.

JAKE: There it goes!

The ESA module comes down five miles from the closest road.

The only way to get there is ATV.

PILOT [ over radio ]: You want to make a right, a sharp right.

A spotter plane overhead is directing Jake to the module.

From your position, on the right.

Yeah, standby.

This is the fun part!

So I'll lead, because I've got comms with the airplane.

He's walking us on.

But it's-- It's a mile straight from here.

I'm hoping it's between us and those trees.

PILOT [ over radio ]: You're within about 500 yards.

JAKE: We've got eyes on it.

PILOT: Great.

JAKE: It's good in a sense that you've got low scrub.

It's not in the trees, so that's a plus.

But in a perfect world, it would've been closer to a paved road.

[ chuckles ] The European team wastes no time documenting the condition of the parachute.

[ camera shutter clicks ] -Okay.

-Okay.

JOE: Nice to see it in one piece.

MAN: Very gently, because this is the part that we care about.

Yeah, this parachute's what this whole flight was about.

MAN: Yeah.

When they get home, the team will go over every inch of the massive parachute looking for damage.

It's the best part of two days.

It's a lot of fabric to inspect.

MEN: Go.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

All that's left is to call for a lift.

The results of this test will have major implications for the ESA mission.

And at the end of a long day, as the module fades into the distance, the team knows the parachute model that will make Mars exploration possible had to land in Oregon first.

[ ♪♪♪ ] [ birds chirping ] Bonsai trees like these are a result of a potent combination of human skill and patience combined with a deep appreciation for how nature works.

To master this art takes a lifetime of learning.

MAN: Originally, bonsai started in China and migrated to Japan.

And both hint at trying to have this relationship with nature and bringing that natural environment closer to home.

My name's Ryan Neil, and I'm a bonsai professional.

Which doesn't quite feel accurate, but there's not a better word for what I do right now.

We are at Bonsai Mirai, which is a facility that I conceptualized during my apprenticeship in Japan as being an incubator for the evolution and exploration of bonsai as a communicative art form.

The goal is not to remove all old needles.

If that's what happens, it sends a pine straight down into the gutter.

We teach people the technical horticultural and artistic concepts to do bonsai well.

We explore how far we can push the boundaries of aesthetics.

For a bougainvillea with its characteristics, being a vine... And we educate online, hoping that with that greater accessibility, we're able to touch those people with this medium.

So this is a Rocky Mountain Juniper.

It came from a very arid, very windy environment, and having recovered from the process of collection, we're now giving it its first styling and interpretation of representing that greater environment in miniature.

So I like to start by cleaning.

This process helps me understand all of those little nuances and quirks that I need to know to responsibly change the position of the branching.

Bonsai for me started at a county fair in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

I was 12 years old.

When I saw these bonsai trees, I just thought, "Wow!"

You know, like, I just...

When it hit, it was like immaculate conception.

It was just like, "That's what I'm doing with my life."

Within a month of that experience, I was exposed to Masahiko Kimura's work, whom I would eventually apprentice myself to for six years.

Mashiko Kimura is largely regarded as the father of modern bonsai.

And just the innovative, avant garde way he approached the art form resonated with me.

I went to school for horticulture and I wrote Mr. Kimura a letter in Japanese, and I didn't hear back.

And so I wrote him another letter and I didn't hear back.

I heard back from him 23 letters later, two years, that I could come to Japan.

This is probably where the front needs to be... because this is a very large piece of negative space over here.

Would this branch dropping down into this space do something really magical for this tree?

Do I want to try and bend that branch, do I need to bend that, do I need that branch?

Do I even need that branch is a big question.

The chances of breakage are high to very high, but... that is what it's going to take.

[ sighs deeply ] Okay.

So I think that's what we're going to do.

The traditional model is trying to find that optimal pyramid.

Every coniferous tree wants to grow like that.

And then lightning strikes and gale-force winds hit.

But the tree continues functioning to the best of its ability in that new circumstance, and suddenly that symmetry now becomes asymmetry.

And then lightning strikes again.

And drought and insects.

And that tree is pushed into a further degree of asymmetry.

And you start to see this incremental shift from young to old, and you just have a really good story there.

And you match the aesthetic to those characteristics.

[ grunting softly ] Oh, good.

[ sighs ] And of course, um...

I want a little bit more.

[ wood creaking ] Okay, I hear it.

I hear it starting to tear.

You can hear it... right here.

Just everything stretching.

It stopped now.

So, you know, now this tree recuperates from this design session and we will re-pot it next spring.

And that will be sort of the beginning of its life as a bonsai.

My name's Ryan Neil.

I'm 24 years old.

I've been here for closing in on two years now, and I wish I could say it's getting easier, but it seems like things just, uh, keep getting more and more complicated as the depth of understanding and the art progresses.

My apprenticeship in Japan with Masahiko Kimura was very, very challenging.

The notion of apprenticeship on that kind of traditional level demands a lot of humility.

And so as an American who has my own thoughts and opinions that nobody in that structure cares about was a real big challenge to make that adjustment and integrate.

And so just the sacrifice of the self was the ultimate challenge.

[ speaking in Japanese ] In the end, he told me, "When you go back to the United States, for you to not change bonsai in North America would be a failure.

It would be a failure."

That was it.

[ birds chirping ] When I came back from Japan... Let's go.

...I was really inspired to understand continental North America a little bit better.

Come on!

Originally when bonsai started, the stunted tree out of the wild had a spirit and a soul that was difficult to create.

But there is definitely an ethic with collecting these stunted trees.

We're privileged to have National Forests, and there are definitely places where you can and can't collect, but you've got to follow the rules.

Oh.

Oh, that's interesting.

That's super interesting.

Subalpine fir, lost its top.

And each of these little branches is popping up as a sub-trunk because the apex was lost.

It's just really interesting.

This tree has just an absolute quest to survive.

That's it.

It's a wonderful aesthetic.

You know, North America is such a dramatic landscape.

But not everybody can come up here.

Not everybody knows that this does exist.

And it's like, to use this vehicle of the miniaturized tree, you're trying to take people there.

This tree would have no possibility of being collected.

It's completely locked in the rock, but it doesn't matter whether or not a tree is collectible.

When you see these things, it just adds to this file system of imagery of what you can pull on when you get to work on different species of trees.

It certainly is inspiring.

So this is the tree that we worked on last year, and now that it's grown and recovered, we have the opportunity to put it into its first bonsai container.

[ sighs ] I am sculpting the root system so that it can stand on its own.

[ blowing ] Okay.

It's really...

It's an interesting time to be alive because so much has been at our fingertips.

I sense that we're moving backwards, and maybe that's not such a bad thing, because that causes us to rethink the system.

That's one of the big issues with sustainability is it's such a big concept that it's almost impossible to digest.

And that's really where I've seen bonsai have a lot of power.

You know, it makes it digestible because you just have to worry about your relationship with a singular tree.

And that becomes a metaphor that highlights our collaborative relationship with the natural environment.

So the whole thing ties together in the end.

Okay.

I have to prepare the container now.

That pairing of the tree to the containerized environment is the first time that it becomes a bonsai.

Once it's in that bonsai container, you are in a continual collaborative relationship in order for that tree to survive.

It's just a little too small.

But that's the marriage that allows us to control the energy system of the tree enough to keep it from being a big tree and really empower that stunted tree to have a bigger voice.

[ sighs ] Took that last little... [ whistles ] Just that, tsk, little nudge.

Just that last little nudge.

I'm not Japanese.

There are things I'll never understand about Japanese culture.

But I learned in Japan that you can't know something unless you've existed in it through good, bad, and ugly.

So for me, as we continue to evolve this art form in the Western world, I chose to embed myself in this wonderful land mass of North America.

These nuances of the land are what we're losing, and through these little trees, I look at those bigger trees and I recognize that I do have a place in their life cycle just in the manner in which I choose to consume resources and how I handle all of the living things that I come into contact with.

I think that's really beautiful.

PHOTOGRAPHER: Cool.

It's a real scalable awareness that bonsai has created.

And it's like, oh, through this work, I can communicate this relationship that we have.

And that has become the greater mission.

[ ♪♪♪ ] [ wind whistling ] We love it on Oregon Field Guide when we have a few minutes to just let photographers do their thing.

No words, just beauty, which is exactly what Brandon Swanson found on a recent trip to Oregon's Painted Hills.

[ water burbling ] [ ♪♪♪ ] [ gobbling ] [ wind whistling ] [ geese honking ] [ ♪♪♪ ] You can now find many Oregon Field Guide stories and episodes online.

And to be part of the conversation about the outdoors and environment here in the Northwest, join us on Facebook.

[ birds chirping ] Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... Additional support provided by... And the following... and the contributing members of OPB and viewers like you.