I had a Hughes 500D suffer an engine failure over a very large wooded place....called Alaska. It quit at 9800 feet above ground thus I had way too much time to think on the way down. After some highly concentrated observation, contemplation, and finally a decision....I gave up on making it to any kind of a clearing. There was one better place but no good places.
Being very late in the afternoon, I chose to put the Sun behind me...accepted the wind for whatever it was....and aimed for the one better place. After some waffling....I decided it was the trees for me.
I recalled something an old forestry pilot had told me many years before....and that was once one decided it was trees and not a clearing....then hold the collective all the way down....maintain lots of airspeed....and when there was no other choice...do a healthy flare....build all the rotor RPM possible...and just as you run out of airspeed/height/ideas.....aim for the best place you see in front of you. Use up all the rotor RPM and aim for the softest stuff possible...and aim to hit the big trees with all/both rotor blades at the same time.
It worked.....in fact I was able to do a cyclic climb and pop over some bigger trees and hit a very lovely hole in the trees....landed atop a very soft Pussy Willow thicket and walked away without a scratch on me or the aircraft.
Never arrive short with no Rotor RPM trying to make it to a clearing....always arrive with as much RPM as you can get.
Helicopter pilots live and die by Rotor RPM.