in other words, bleached by the sun in the places that were exposed. and that would not have happened had the hair been buried for five years. >> trammell also found pine needles and shards of bark in the braids. the bark was from an aspen tree which tends to grow in cleared areas. she also found needles from two coniferous tree species, the subalpine fur and the engleman spruce. subalpine furs grow in elevations above 9,000 feet. and engleman spruces grow in wet areas suggesting the body was somewhere on the mountain's north slope, which doesn't get much sun. trammell identified an area matching all these parameters just one mile from where the braided hair was discovered 15 years earlier. the necrosearch team made up entirely of volunteers moved into action.