The oldest trees in the world: Ancient Bristlecone Pine tree forest

Jul 1

Jul 1 The oldest trees in the world: Ancient Bristlecone Pine tree forest

In the central-east part of California, lies an Ancient Bristlecone Pine tree forest. They are the oldest trees in the world, the oldest being over five-thousand years old.

To reach the Bristlecone pine tree national forest you take a detour off the 168 highway onto the White Mountain Rd and from there it is a forty-five minute to one hour long drive. The road is narrow and windy, but it is totally worth it. Along the drive you see mountains (the mountain range is called the White mountains, so no wonder the road is also named that as well), you also see juniper berry trees and wildlife. There is an visitor center right before the trails (unfortunately, it was closed due to Covid 19 when we visited). However there is go signs and informative plaque along the way. There are 3 different hikes options that start by the visitor center / parking lot:

The Discovery Trail (a one-mile loop). As we had a limited amount of time, this was the best option and it turned out to be very interesting and worth the trip! The Discovery Trail was fairly flat and with several informative signs regarding the trees, fauna & flora and history.
The Bristlecone Cabin Trail (3.5 mile loop) If you do the Bristlecone Cabin Trail you will find historic cabins made during the California gold rush. The cabins, now falling apart, are made from even older Bristlecone pine trees.
The Methuselah Trail (the hardest with 900 foot elevation gain and 4.5 miles long). If you are up for a challenge, you can do the Methuselah Trail to see the oldest trees in the world, hence the name Methuselah (a biblical figure that lived for over nine hundred years, and lived the longest of all biblical figures). The Methuselah tree itself was known as the oldest tree in the grove but later studies showed another tree was actually over five thousand years. To protect these amazing trees, the exact location of the Methuselah tree and the oldest one have not been revealed to the public.

A brief history about the grove

The grove was discovered in the 1950s by Dr. Edmund Schulman. He also found the Methuselah tree and that it was over 4,000 years. Dr. Schulman was on a quest looking for the oldest trees in the world. He thought that the bigger the tree was the older it was until he climbed up the White Mountains of California. He found that the oldest trees were really the more gnarled and wind blown trees.

Although finding some of the oldest trees in the world, Dr. Schulman died in 1958 at the age of 49. During Dr. Schulman’s time they used a method of tree ring counting which is basically just where you pull out a small tube of the tree and then counting all the rings in that little tube. Now instead of doing all that counting they do carbon dating, a far easier way to determine the age of something. Over the years there have been several ‘sweeps’ of the area (what I mean is that they see the age of a lot of tree). The grove is part of the Inyo National Forest but the only trees in the area are the bristlecones.

I highly suggest going to the Bristlecone Pine tree forest. It was fun and educational, and overall, awesome. We went with our aunt to the forest and the after our hike we had to say good-bye to her after spending ten days with her (We miss you Titia! ;) ). If you have time you should definitely go and see the oldest trees in the ENTIRE world!

PS: don’t forget warm cloths as the forest it located at around 10,000ft!