Today we spent the morning doing maintenance and housework and the afternoon riding up Highway 168 to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Highway 168 starts out with one of those yellow squiggly line signs indicating a twisty turning road ahead. This one had a sign underneath that said 16 miles. Yahoo! It was so fun! Wayne led the way which meant he had to wait at the top for me, but we both had a ball. Wayne says “Bring your street bike and be prepared for turns before and after every blind hill”. It was a real peg dragger.
From there we turned north on another
very twisty road that only goes to the Bristlecone Pine Forest which is made of
several groves of these ancient trees.
Located in the White Mountains these trees are considered the oldest
trees in the world. The oldest one documented here is 4,600 years old! And these are knarly, short, tough looking
trees.
Knarly
Once we got up to the
visitors center, we went for a short walk at Schulman Grove. We would have done the longer Methuselah
Trail loop, but it was a little late in the day to start that one. The one mile Discovery Trail went up and over
the hill next to the Visitors Center.
Following Wayne, as usual
The view from the top was
awesome
The builders did some nice
work with the available materials
These two trees are side by
side, yet one is alive and one is not.
Why?
On
the way back to the highway we stopped at a viewpoint and climbed to the top there
too.
Can you see our bikes way
down by the road?
We could see the valley that
Highway 395 passes through
Deep Springs Lake
The Bristlecone Road with
Deep Springs Lake in the background
Of course we just had to go
back to camp via Highway 168. I know it was a tough job, but someone had to do
it! J
4600 year old trees? No wonder they are short and gnarly looking! haha... Keep having fun!
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