Bristle Cone Pines, Big Pine, CA

I moved North to Big Pine to the Glacier View Campground. Nice place just north of town at the intersection of Hyw 395 and Hwy 168. The Bristle Cone Pine Forests are 24 Miles Northeast off Hwy 168. There are also some nice areas to see West of town in the mountains.

The road to Bristle Cone Pines looks like this, except, I should have taken one with one of the bicycle obstructions. There was a bicycle event with hundreds of bicycles making there way from 4000 feet at Big Pine to 9000 at the Bristle Cone Pines Schulman Grove, where I was going.

The Bristle Cone Pine trees here are the oldest living things on Earth, over 5,000 year old trees are found here. These live trees along with dead trees and fallen trees provide information valuable in dating events over the past 10,000 years. They were used to calibrate the carbon dating method and when that was done history was changed.

The trail was not a bad grade and there was lots of shade. Not a bad hike but there is no water anywhere here.. The trees weather well. They don't rot but do errode into nice patterns like above.


Some of these trees may look dead but look again, there are leaves. Some look like any other tree without all the dead wood and may be of equal size to a dead looking tree. The conditions of growth shape the trees. Nicely!

This is the road going down. There is quite a nice forest about midway.
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Bristle Cone Pines