>>2391721You can crop off a millimeter of the photo, and it'll straighten out. I have no idea why this works but it does.
>>2391729Those are galls. They're made by parasitic wasps who inject their eggs into the leaf. They also inject a cocktail of enzymes and chemicals that make the tree produce a corky growth around the egg, which the larvae feeds on as it grows. The wasps then tunnel out of the gall after they pupate, beginning the cycle again.
Pic rel is from a couple days ago in southcentral Alaska.
>Planned a solo overnight trip in an uninhabited valley>Walked 5 miles out to the site, without a trail>Ate dinner>realized the mosquitoes were hellish, and a bear could instantly kill me if it wanted to>hiked back and arrived at 12:30 amThe trip was technically a failure, but I still learned some valuable lessons:
>Wetlands and stream levee terrain create mosquito and brush hell. Traverse them as quickly as possible and get to higher ground.>solo trips in bear country are dumb. 