This image looks south. It shows where the Nebraska Sandhills (a 12 million acre grassland landscape) ends at the wooded breaks of the Niobrara River. The woodland shown here went through the big 2012 wildfire, but many of the trees were protected from fire by the cool, moist north-facing slopes. Those same factors help support tree species (including paper birch) that don’t otherwise seem like they have any right to be in the hjot and arid west.