Is it hair splitting or wood splintering to discuss relative ages of trees on t
he greater tourism trail? The Sri Lanka Tourist Board has just sent out an announcement that the country's Ministry of Tourism has purchased a non-polluting, four-passenger electric vehicle to carry old (or otherwise mobility-challenged) visitors to a very old tree. They believe the Sri Mahabodhi tree in sacred Anuradhapura to be the world's oldest recorded tree. The revered Bo tree (top right) is more than 2,500 years old.
he greater tourism trail? The Sri Lanka Tourist Board has just sent out an announcement that the country's Ministry of Tourism has purchased a non-polluting, four-passenger electric vehicle to carry old (or otherwise mobility-challenged) visitors to a very old tree. They believe the Sri Mahabodhi tree in sacred Anuradhapura to be the world's oldest recorded tree. The revered Bo tree (top right) is more than 2,500 years old. That may be, but it's only because no one was around at high elevations to record the time when today's bristlecone pines were seedlings. Even today, they are remote and often difficult to reach. Small colonies of this rugged, thick-trunked pine species that sometimes resembles banzai on steroids grow between about 10,000 and 11,000 feet in six Western states: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada (a Great Basin bristlecone is shown, lower right).
Donald R. Currey, then a doctoral student of the University of North Carolina, merits a footnote to the history of seriously misguided endeavors. In 1964, he was taking core samples of bristlecones, including a huge, gnarled specimen named Prometheus. It was so solid a tree that he kept breaking his coring tool broke. He asked for and shockingly, received pe
rmission from the U.S. Forest Service to cut the tree down to determine its age. In a spectacularly example of bone-headed bureaucracy, the Forest Service granted permission to cut it down, earning Currey the distinction of having killed the oldest known living thing on the planet. Forty-four years ago, 4,844 rings were counted. A website devoted to bristlecones refers to Prometheus as "The Martyred One."
rmission from the U.S. Forest Service to cut the tree down to determine its age. In a spectacularly example of bone-headed bureaucracy, the Forest Service granted permission to cut it down, earning Currey the distinction of having killed the oldest known living thing on the planet. Forty-four years ago, 4,844 rings were counted. A website devoted to bristlecones refers to Prometheus as "The Martyred One."Currently, the oldest acknowledged bristlecone pine, nicknamed Methuselah, is still growing in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in eastern California's White Mountains. Either it's not as tough a tree as Prometheus was or core sampling tools have improved, but it has been dated by dendochronology, the science of counting tree rings, to be 4,789 years old. The Forest Service has learned something in more than 40 decades and will not reveal Methuselah's exact position in the bristlecone grove in order to protect it from a latter-day Currey who wants to break the record.
The road to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center is about an hour from Bishop, CA, and is generally open from May through October. These ancient trees are concentrated in two groves, the Schulman Grove and the Patriarch Grove.
In addition to groves that require something of a hike, I know of three fairly easily reachable bristlecone groves in Colorado:
- The most straightforward is the Mt. Evans Scenic Highway, not far from Idaho Springs, which provides access to a bristlecone grove between Mt. Evans and Mt. Goliath. The road is generally plowed out by Memorial Day and remains open until October.
- Bristlecones also inhabit the picturesque lake-filled cirque at the foot of St. Mary's Glacier, north of Interstate 70's Fall River Road exit (Exit 238). Local residents of surrounding subdivisions are fiercely protective of their private property, and permitted parking is extremely limited.
- The Windy Ridge Bristlecone Scenic Area is about four miles from Alma, which in turn is along Colorado 9 south of Breckenridge. Reaching the parking area for the bristlecone grove requires driving an unpaved road and fording a small steam. It is usually drivable by May, but with this winter's heavy snows, who knows?
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I am glad I am not the only one that has a passion for trees. When I am abroad and taking pictures of friends and family I make sure that they stand beside a tree, flower or bush. In other words killing two birds with one stone i.e I have the beauty of nature and beautiful people all in one photo
ReplyDeleteWhat a story about cutting down the world's oldest tree. I've never seen a bristlecone but now I want to. Thank you for telling where to find them.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to point out that Prometheus lived in Nevada, not California. I only mention that because California seems to get all the credit for bristlecones when they are, in fact, scattered all over the Great Basin and a few other places (as Claire pointed out).
ReplyDeleteI first heard about this incident from a friend/mentor when we were hiking to a new climbing route on Wheeler Peak, in the dark, through the bristlecone grove where it grew. Because it was dark, and because we descended via another route, I never did see what remained of the tree.
One of the oldest articles I ever read by Galen Rowell (the great photographer) described this tragedy. I think the article was in either Summit or Mountain Gazette, in the mid-1970s.
At the time the "investigator" killed it, it was considered to be the oldest living thing in the world. Now it appears that there are other even older things still alive. Here is a link to the Wikipedia list of long-living organisms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms
Hearing about the demise of our oldest bristlecone pine (which I did not know was the oldest species of tree, thanks Claire!) reminds me of an article in The Sun magazine, May 2007 issue by Dustin Beall Smith called "Shade: A Letter From Gettysburg." Smith lives near the Gettysburg National Military Park (in PA) and likes to walk there. One day he noticed logging machinery and within weeks, 100 large trees (maples, oaks, tulip, mulberries, magnolias, cedars, hickories, and ash) were cut down. Some were 2 and 3 feet in diameter. Upon further investigation he learned that the park was intent on maintaining the battleground exactly as it looked during the Civil War! Therefore, any trees that had grown since then were being murdered. He says, "When this logging project is complete, a forested area equivalent to 526 football fields will have been 'restored' to match photographs taken in July 1863." I couldn't believe it. But knowing about the carnage in Gettysburg and the short-sited stupidity of removing beautiful, healthy, old trees just so visitors have an unobstructed view of a battlefield, I am not surprised to know about Prometheus.
ReplyDeleteTurns out the world's oldest trees are in Sweden. At least, that's what MSNBC says. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24065386/.
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