Amber Forest
On the steeps of Switzerland Le Soliat mountain we've stepped into a Birch forest of thin-leaved deciduous hardwood trees sporting their autumn cloaks. Shrouded in the swirling October mist we can wander over the crunching floor or stop and stand still listening to the muffled sounds of silence hanging between the branches.
Notice the iridescent lichen covered rocks, a living composite organism that arises from algae and survives among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship. It lies scattered across the forest floor like Gretel’s trail of bread crumbs, beckoning us further, we may not find a Gingerbread House of our own but if we continue up the incline perhaps we would eventually come to the top of the 1400m Jura Mountain and see the Lake Neuchâtel below us.