Well, I'm sorry to say I don't have some spectacular FA of some remote freakishly scary peak where I almost died 100 times to report. Just lot's of tree pictures taken with minimal physical effort involved... but they are pretty cool trees.


My summer job landed me at the Schulman Grove Visitor's Center in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, so here we are. My job doesn't suck and has been fantastically educational.

The Search for Methuselah

After much cajoling.. I was given "the super secret location" of our 4800 year old friend. I had not yet hiked the entire Methuselah Trail, so off I went.



The pollen cones were starting to form on the bristlecones. The red is the common/dominant (purple cones) and the yellow is a recessive gene that will form a green cone in some trees. We have one really unusual tree that forms white pollen near the VC.



More Trees:


A fallen tree sprouting multiple trunks that all grew together is likely how the Patriarch (the largest Bristlecone) got it's immense size.



Size has no relevance to age. This small tree growing on an exposed ridge is probably the same age as the Patriarch Tree which is *"only"* 1500 years old.


Some cool dead ones




Back to the search...






I particularly liked the portion of this trail that drops into a mountain mahogany zone. Great view of Deep Springs Valley. Some of those mahogany's are huge and look like they've got some age as well.


Back to the search..

is it this tree??


or this tree?


How bout this tree?


Entering the actual Methuselah grove.. you'll see many trees with multiple bore holes. All of the trees are incredibly old.


And at last...after much stumbling around, squinting to match up a 60 year old photo in a forest of a gazillion bristlecone trees..

Behold...


Methuselah....









As you can see, the our oldest (documented) inhabitant on earth is growing strong. It's still producing cones BTW.

As a side note...in 2013 the tree ring research lab in AZ pulled one of Schulman's old cores out of a vault and counted the rings on a previously uncounted specimen... the core revealed a tree aged 5064 years old. Looking at the 10s of thousands of trees growing out there.. I'm guessing there's even older ones lurking.

Edit to add: Poor Don Curry can rest a tiny bit easier in his grave knowing that he did not.. in fact.. cut down the oldest living tree on the planet.


A few more pics from the hike out:






People coming to the visitor's center often ask if there are new bristlecones... the answer is YES!. There are actually small ones around if you look.

This year we are witnessing the sprouting of brand new seeds. These are one week old babies just 1/2" tall. The seed tops were still attached prior to a battering by a hail storm last week but they are still fighting to survive. These are impossible to see unless you are literally on hands an knees... a good reason to stick to the established trails BTW.


More pics of our wildflower bloom and a trip Mr.E took up to patriarch grove to come.

Cheers.