No U Turns: On the Road With the Steeles: A Walk Among the Ancients

We are now in Bishop, California, spending the night to get provisioned and laundry done before we head up to Yosemite National Park. The town is located in a valley between the White Mountains to the east and the Sierra Nevada range to the west.

We finally got out of Utah on June 25, when we arrived at Great Basin National Park in Nevada, just across the Utah line. It’s a relatively new national park, created in 1986. Its very remote location makes it one of the least visited and least developed of the national parks. The main attraction of the park is a Bristlecone Pine grove, with many trees in the 3,000 year range. It’s also where the tree I mentioned earlier, Prometheus, unbeknownst at the time as the world’s oldest living thing, at 4,862 years of age, was cut down. (read more at http://sonic.net/bristlecone/Martyr.html).

The Park’s name comes from the fact that all precipitation within the 200,000 square mile boundary drains internally. Bounded by the Great Salt Lake to the East, the Sierra Nevada to the west, and the Snake River Plain to the north, all precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes (mostly saline). Creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. Didn’t know that.

We took a nice hike there through the pine grove that ended at a rock glacier at the base of Wheeler Peak, which is 13,063 feet. The park is located next to the very small town (pop 200) of Baker, Nevada, which boasts the darkest skies in the lower 48 states. As a result, it’s a mecca for stargazers, and on our last night there, the Park Service hosted a public star gaze that brought attracted professional and amateur astronomers who set up their telescopes for anyone to look through. Way cool. Saw Saturn’s rings, the Swan Nebula, as well as various star systems and constellations. We also toured the park’s Lehman Cave, which is known for its elaborate and rare cave formations.

From there, the call of the Ancient Ones brought us to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California, which is home of Methuselah, now the oldest known living thing, at 4,767 years of age. We weren't sure if we actually saw the old man as his exact location is kept secret. Not surprising considering that the visitor center there was burned to the ground by an arsonist two years ago.

What makes these trees so amazing is that the oldest trees grow where survival is the most difficult (9,500-11,000 feet elevation, alkaline soil, minimal rainfall.) Contributing to their longevity is their slow growth (some add just one inch of tree rings over a century) and their ability to cut off nutrients to parts of the tree, so that most of the wood is dead, except for a ribbon of bark that keeps one part of the tree alive. This reduces the amount of water and nutrients that the tree needs to survive. But it is this “dead” part of the tree that creates some astonishingly beautiful shapes and forms. This is due to the wood’s high resin content, which means it doesn’t rot but instead becomes beautifully sculpted and polished over the eons by the elements.

In fact, Bristlecone pine wood can remain intact for thousands of years and it is because of this that scientists have assembled a continuous tree-ring chronology extending nearly 10,000 years. Not only has this played an important role in climatology but also helped to correct a flaw in radio carbon dating that showed many archeological sites were actually 1,000 years or more older than previously thought. Yes, Bristlecone Pines have become known as the trees that rewrote history. So, you can see why these trees have intrigued us so much. And walking through one hillside in the White Mountains that contained some of the oldest trees inspired awe and reverence. It’s a place where time really doesn’t exist.

After White Mountains, we crossed the valley to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where we camped for three nights to hike in the Big Pine Creek Canyon area. Big Pine Canyon is the location of the southernmost glaciers in the U.S. and the largest in the Sierra Nevada. Two hikes we did there gave us good views of the glaciers as well as took us through some nice mountain meadows bursting with wildflowers.

We’re really looking forward to getting to higher country, as today the temperature in Bishop was 96. This isn’t surprising as the town is located in the same county as Death Valley, which at 282 feet below sea level is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere. Interesting is that just 76 miles away is the highest peak in the continental U.S., Mt. Whitney, at 14,496 feet. Go figure.

Jim Hiking in Great Basin National Park