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 "While on the roughest ledges of crumbling limestone are lowly old giants, five or six feet in diameter that have braved the storms of more than a thousand years." John Muir |
The Bristlecone Pines of Windy Ridge, Colorado
2001 Don Macnaughtan
See also my companion photos of the ancient bristlecones of the White Mountains, California
The bristlecone pines of Windy Ridge are over 1,000 years old. Their cousins in the White Mountains of California were growing before the onset of cities and early civilizations, when most of the world was still in the Stone Age. The oldest White Mountain bristlecone is the most ancient living thing on earth, at about 50 centuries - it seeded around 2650 BC. Known as the "Methuselah" tree, its actual location is a closely held secret. In 1972, a scientist planted and raised 96 healthy trees from 96 of Methuselah's seeds.
The Windy Ridge bristlecones are incredibly hardy. They endure summer drought, poor soil, thin air and harsh sunlight, high-altitude radiation, hurricane-force winds and bitter winter cold. They are twisted and gnarled, but keep growing about a hundredth of an inch each year. Most of their energy goes into survival and seed production.
The bristlecones which give the pine its name are black, sticky with resin, and studded with tiny bristles.
Some of the bristlecones were cut for mining timbers in the 19th century. Even now, the sawn timbers show no signs of deterioration. This tree shows a century-old slice where a miner sawed on the tree.
The bristlecones are a paradox: the harsher the conditions, the longer they live. Trees which have the "good" fortune to have soil and water grow too fast, and die young. The trees that are constantly stressed grow slow but hard, a few centimeters a year.
The wind and harsh conditions create vivid swirls of bare wood, interspersed with the vibrant olive of the pine needles. Some of the trees seem barely alive, but still carry dense crowns of needles and cones.
Patterns in the wood have built up over centuries of slow growth and weathering. The wood is so hard that it is polished rather than worn by ice, dust and wind.
With the bark weathered and worn away, the wood beneath is bone white, but the trees are still thriving and growing in the brief high-altitude summer
The trees sometimes seem to be straining to stay in the soil, their trunks leaning almost horizontally away from the winds. Wind dictates everything on the mountain. It roars over the top of Mt. Bross, the 22nd highest peak in the state at 14,172', and barrels down the ridge. To survive this blast, every tree has to be tough and resilient.
Directions to the Bristlecone Pines Scenic Area More information on the Windy Ridge bristlecones
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Building, 4000 East 30th Ave, Eugene, OR 97405 Questions or comments regarding this website can be directed to Don Macnaughtan. Email: macnaughtand@lanecc.edu. This page was last updated: 30 December, 2004 ©2004 Lane Community College |
