The Oldest Living Trees on Earth
A
mysterious and rather exotic pine forest has stood silent watch at the
timberline of Mt. Goliath, in the North American Rocky Mountains for
several centuries. Isolated and peaceful, the only sounds you will
here at this elevation are the occasional screech of an eagle, and the
whispering of the chilled mountain breeze as it weaves its way
thorough the rocks and the branches of this unusual forest.
What is so remarkable about an old pine
forest you ask? Well first, this forest has been a special and sacred
place for Native Americans since the dawn of man's history in North
America. It is a place of spirits and powerful forces as evidenced by
the bizarre, contorted and twisted shapes of the gnarled trees.
This is a forest of the power of life. While many of the strange trees
appear to be dead and stripped of their life sustaining bark, they are
in fact alive. What makes this forest even more remarkable, is that
these specific trees have witnessed the passage of centuries. The
Bristlecone Pine is the oldest living organism on earth.
These trees are known to live to be
any where from 1,500 years old to more than 4,000 years old. In fact, the oldest known
Bristlecone, found in Nevada, was 4,964 years old. To put this into
perspective, realize that some of these trees were standing when the
Great Pyramids of Egypt were being built, and that they are still
living today.
As you explore the Bristlecone forest, if you move very quietly, and
pay very close attention to your thoughts, you can almost make out the
distant voices of time.
The grotesque appearance of the trees is
a statement to the determination of life; several show only the
faintest signs of life, supporting only a few, or sometimes just one
living branch. These sparse, living branches are all connected to the
tree's root system by a very narrow layer of nurturing bark.
In such a hostile environment of long
months and years turning to centuries of ice, snow, and high winds,
the bark of these magnificent trees has been scoured and blasted away,
leaving the trunks bare, and polished to a smooth silvery gray. And
still, they survive.
The range of the Bristlecone extends
from just south of Rocky Mountain National Park, down through central
Colorado, and deep into the Sangre De Cristo mountain range in New
Mexico.
