This trip to the Bristlecones was emotionally impactful.
I made it during the “off” season, if there is such a thing. ha!
The road to the Patriarch grove was deep in snow and there were still pockets surrounding the icons of the Schulman grove as well.
I was so alone that I dared park my car on the dirt road below instead of the parking lot much more distant and hiked straight up the hill to the two icons above.
I shuttled up my sleeping bag and jetboil, as I often do when settling in for a night of fun, and curled up at the base of the tree we see here.
I had the strangest realization that night. In front of me were two of the oldest trees on the planet. Roughly 4500 years. So I’m breathing this rarified air and realizing that these trees were around when a young King David was still herding sheep and would no doubt still be here long after I had been buried and forgotten.
Across the Owen’s valley to my west, glowing in the moonlight, were visible freshly snow-capped peaks, reminders of the relatively ancient Sierra Crest created many millions of years ago from volcanoes, upturned seabed and rock much older.
Then, the light energies gently reaching my eyes from the stars overhead, some of which had been traveling at light speed for millions of years before they spent their wads on little ‘ol me.
Yet, here I lay, my head filled with the notion that life was all about me.
Honestly, I envisioned the likely hood that sooner than later, according to glacial time, me and my species would be long forgotten and the universe would hardly have taken notice.
The survivors of our madness? The rats, vultures and occasional cockroach.
Sorry for the dark twist, it happens!
