Collecting at altitude

I have always dreamed of collecting impressive bonsai off large mountains, but I have never lived anywhere where that was even remotely a possibility. Now I have big mountains around, but those mountains also produce climate changes I am not accustomed to collecting around. How do you manage when it is spring at your elevation but winter on the mountain where the tree is at? Do you collect for your climate zone or for the tree's? Thanks for any advice on this matter.

I reckon you wait until the ground isn't frozen. Spring comes quite a bit later at elevation. Friends in the Pacific NW tell me there still is 10 feet of snow "at elevation" where they live -- while we swelter at 95-100 degrees.

I can't go over 7,000 feet (and that with difficulty), so that kind of collecting isn't for me any more -- if it ever was.

spring comes very late in the higher parts, what does it do to a tree to bring it from spring into summer in a day, that can't be good- but is winter into spring in a day any better?

You need to read
Wolfgang Putz http://www.yamadori-bonsai.info/Putz_roh_Engl.html

Walter Pall http://walterpallbonsaiarticles.blogspot.com/2009/10/collecting-trees-from-wild-english.html

They know what they are talking about