Subaru drivers tend to be innately aware of the adventure, which almost always takes place outside, in nature, or in the wilderness. It is so much a part of our identity that Subaru has a trim called the Wilderness on some models. Whether it’s skiing over landscapes, hiking up a mountain, or enjoying the spring bloom, we tend to enjoy the fruits of nature year-round.

When we think about the journey, some of us may reference the painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, an oil on canvas work that came out of the Romantic movement. It depicts a man, with his back towards the viewer, standing on top of a rocky crag. He is surveying the landscape in front of him, where a dense fog settles over the valley, while other ridges and features pop up at various points in the distance. On top of these ridges, you can see one of the most important contributors to a healthy environment standing in solidarity on the rocky peaks – trees.

Not unlike the wanderer, we will see many trees on our adventures, especially steeped along the deep ridges of the Allegheny Mountains, where nature has been primarily conserved. However, development of both rural and urban land has long cleared out many of the forests in our area. Of course, a society needs some clear land for survival, but there are many spaces in our region where it is appropriate to cultivate the land with more trees. Whether it is land that has been abandoned, reclaimed, or blighted, the Arbor Day Foundation estimates that there is enough land globally to increase forest cover by up to 30%.

Trees offer a wide array of benefits, as many of us are probably aware. They improve the health of our ecosystem, offer shade that helps cool areas, capture carbon dioxide, and, one of our favorites, they help prevent stormwater run-off. An externality of developed infrastructure is that it forces stormwater to rush down streets, across properties, and into pipes. It collects oils, chemicals, and other harmful agents along the way. This increases the cost of water purification methods and can damage the ecosystem further when random substances are spread.

This is why, for Subaru Loves the Earth, Subaru and its retailers partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to offer free trees to residents. In total, 100,000 trees were distributed across the United States, and is the largest corporate tree distribution in history. At Spangler Subaru, about 80% of the trees we handed out went to private properties, and 20% will be planted in and around Johnstown by our partner, Conemaugh Valley Conservancy, including several bald cypress planted at Stackhouse Park All trees were native to the area. It may only be a small contribution, but we want to help make sure you can always be the wanderer, surveying the land and enjoying the nature that surrounds you.