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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
With many of the trees in this forest still standing before the era of Christ, some of which are still alive, The Bristlecone Forest of the Great Basin National Park was one of the most unique living places that we have ever seen.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park. |
Bristlecone trees from at elevations around 9,800 and 11,000 feet (3,000–3,400 m) above sea
level and grow in such harsh environments that stunt the growth of these trees. The high winds and cold conditions add to the slow growth and cause the wood to become incredible hard which protects them from rot, bugs, and the environment.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
Some of these bristlecone pines have been living for around 4,000 to 5,000 years now. Some of these older trees have been documented by scientists to be live up to just over 5,000 years old!
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
After our summit hike, we headed over to Stella lake and continued to follow the Alpine loop to visit the other two lakes while hiking through the Aspen forest. We were looking at some other features in the forest but it was also nice to get away from the crowds of people walking around and make our way to the other lakes.
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| Alpine Lake Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
We stopped at another lake and took in the amazing views of Wheeler peak in the background knowing that we just came from the top and now we are hiking the rest of the parks trails.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
We found that there was a connecting trail to the Bristle cone grove so we decided that since we are here, we would just hike out to the grow and enjoy the beautiful ancient trees. This was a .7 mile ( each way) hike to the grove so that was not much more in addition to all of the other miles that we added to the day.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
We were approaching the grove to the Bristlecone forest and we could see these trees with the very wide trunks that don't stand all that tall, come into vision.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
the trees live just below the tree line and are a bit scattered among boulders piles and rock slopes.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
I found this place to be absolutely fascinating in the sense that we are among trees that have been alive for 1000s of years now. Some of these trees have been around before Christ and during the Roman Empire.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
One particular tree had a bunch of roots that appear to connect to other trees and I cant even imagine what the age of this tree must be.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
The wood felt like stone and the trees would not even budge when high winds came through the valley floor. I could sit here all day pondering the stories and and the resilience that these tress hold but for now I am smitten to the pristine that these pines have been through and feel the enchantment as we walked through the ancient forest of the Bristlecone pines.
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| Bristlecone forest, Great Basin National Park |
