Into The Woods With Methuselah

photo by Amy and Seth Colitz

Late August seemed like a good time to escape our stifling urban areas. Luckily our desert-loving CNRCC leader, Lygeia Gerard, scheduled a great weekend in the White-Inyos, a wonderful desert range where we were able to indulge our love of wide open spaces at very bearable temperatures because of the high elevation.

Friday evening about a dozen of us traveled along Highway 168 out of Big Pine to gather under an almost full moon at the spacious Grandview campground at an altitude of 8,600 feet.

Our focal point was the Forest of the Ancients where those magnificent Bristlecone pines - older than any other trees on earth - are somehow able to survive the high, harsh and dry desert environment. On a clear, slightly breezy Saturday morning, we leisurely car-pooled to Schulman Grove (at about 10,100 ft.) on a road which afforded the most incredible views across Owens Valley to the High Sierras, home to 12 of the highest peaks in the nation.

In the parking lot at Schulman Grove (named after the man who devised the system for determining the age of the Bristlecones), we saw the ruins of the Visitors Center, destroyed a couple of years ago by a deranged arsonist. The fairly new center had been a beautifully designed wood structure that housed informative history and educational aids, which greatly enhanced visits to this unique area. Fortunately, generous monetary contributions have made it possible to build another center. The arsonist is incarcerated in a psychiatric institution, and the new Visitors Center is set to break ground in the spring of 2011.

There are two main trails through the grove: the Discovery Trail, a short path with great examples of the trees and their history; and the Methuselah Walk, a 4-mile loop through an extended area. Blessed with balmy weather, we opted for the longer path. Initially it took us higher up the mountain, into dolomite and granite rocks, and past our first gnarly, twisted, awe-inspiring trees with their trunks in shades of brown, grey and gold. After a mile or so we began to descend, with magnificent views across Deep Springs Valley and way, way beyond. The ground cover was more varied here, with desert plants and bushes of much interest to the herbalists and photographers in our group, including sagebrush, Indian paintbrush, pennyroyal, mountain mahogany, squaw currant and Mormon tea, amongst many others.

Our trail eventually took us even lower, down to a concentration of Bristlecone Pines where many of the trees are known to be 3,000 to almost 5,000 years old. One tree is known as Methuselah because it has been dated as 4,767 years old and therefore Earth's oldest living inhabitant. It is no longer marked to save it from people helping themselves to souvenirs. One can only guess which tree it might be.

Many of the trees, in their efforts for survival, have become beautifully contorted, natural sculptures. Some are more dead than alive with perhaps a single strip of bark feeding the entire living part of the tree from its roots. A dead tree can remain standing for hundreds of years, and some of the relics on the forest floor are reputed to be up to 9,000 years old. One tree has a sawn limb to expose its rings, and a mark showing when Jesus Christ was born.

Lygeia carried a guidebook of the area, which some of us took turns reading in order to more fully understand and appreciate our visuals. In between stops, Lygeia kept a moderate pace for those that wanted a steady hike, and our sweep, Dotty Sandford, hung back and acquiesced to those preferring to loiter to investigate and photograph the trees and the plants. Afterwards, we enjoyed a leisurely pack lunch at the picnic area at the end of the trail.

Those who hadn't yet had enough of this truly amazing desert range, continued 12 miles further up the road to Patriarch Grove. There they enjoyed a ¼-mile mountain top stroll through another concentration of magnificent Bristlecones, which look surprisingly strong and healthy, considering the gale-force winds, snow depths and blistering sun they endure.

Finally, it was back to camp where the group enjoyed a delicious potluck supper followed by a blazing campfire - a very satisfying end to a very stimulating day. We won't soon forget our escape from the city.

Janet Damen grew up hiking in Britain. She joined the Sierra Club in 1993 and has done much of her hiking in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and with the Hundred Peaks and Desert Peaks sections.