Aurelien, Delphine, Seb, Marissa, and I went on a quick weekend trip to White Mountain and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in Inyo National Forest. We put the box on the Subie. It was very helpful, as we had five people in the car. We left San Diego at 6:30. We picked Marissa up in Huntington Beach a couple hours later and stopped at In & Out for dinner. I managed to order the wrong thing, even though there are only three options on the menu. Aurelien realized that he had forgotten his keys somewhere. He called his roomie Elena to beg her to go search for them near his car. Traffic was bad coming out of LA. It cleared up eventually and we cruised along. We watched the temperature drop as we climbed up to Grandview Campground, the campground closest to White Mountain and the Bristlecone Pine forest. A fox ran across the road near the top. We got to the campground at 3:00 in the morning. We quickly set up our tents in the cold and crawled in for bed.
Later that morning we woke up and had pancakes. I had brought a pint of huckleberries, and we also had banana and chocolate. They tasted pretty good at 8000 ft. It was a gorgeous morning; nice and sunny. As we packed up camp Aurelien and Delphine realized that they had forgotten one of Delphine's shoes. It was going to be a long trek up White Mountain in flip flops.
We decided that they would drop Marissa, Seb, and me off at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest and go down to Bishop to get some new shoes. As a bonus, they could get some wine; Aurelien had left the bottle he intended to bring in San Diego. On the way to the visitor center we stopped at a viewpoint with gorgeous views of the Sierras. Mt Langley is way off to the south in some of the pictures.
Marissa, Seb, and I headed off on a four mile trail around the forest. We picked up a guidebook at the trailhead. There were twenty-five or so numbered signposts along the trail. Each marker corresponded to a paragraph or two in our guidebook. At first the guide seemed to pose lots of questions without providing any answers. After the first few signposts we realized that the answers came later, supposedly giving us time to ponder the questions.
One of the trees in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is 4700 years old, the oldest living thing. It's called Methuselah (a fitting name). The trees get very little moisture, grow slowly, and are very dense. This helps them fight off rot and diseases. They are small and gnarly. They can kill portions of themselves but still transport nutrients and water to the living bits through thin strips of bark. Pretty amazing to think that they were around as the pyramids were being built.
Here is our lunch spot near the Methuselah grove. The grove is home to the oldest trees. The specifically don't tell anyone which tree is Methuselah to protect it from vandals.
On the left is the Methuselah grove. Somewhere in there is a very old tree. You can see in the other pictures that the Bristlecone Pines don't live in very hospitable looking terrain. Back at the visitor center a ranger encouraged us to watch a video about the trees. We learned that forest fires are suppressed because of lack of ground cover to burn and because of the lack of oxygen at 10,000 ft. Using living and dead trees scientists have dated tree rings back 8600 years. We found Aurelien and Delphine after coming out of the movie.
Sixteen miles of rough gravel road brought us to the trailhead for White Mountain. The trailhead is a pretty barren and windswept place at 11,700 feet. D-rock had told us the atmospheric column above the White Mountain region has the lowest precipitable water content of anywhere on Earth. It was pretty dry.
Seb was feeling spry and gave Marissa a short piggy back ride. Marissa said that she was out of breath from riding and laughing. We set up the tents so that they were shielded by the car (out of the wind) and started making dinner. Delphine did some homework and occasionaly asked Aurelien questions. Marissa read about the hike in the shelter of the car. Aurelien made dinner and it was excellent. He first cooked up eight lamb and pork sausages. Then, in another pan, he cooked potatoes, onions, red pepper, zucchini, and tomato. We mixed it all together for dinner. It was tasty.
The sunset was beautiful, but a little sun would have been nice to keep us warm. It was probably around freezing, so we didn't dally outside for long after dinner. Also, we were going to get up really early the next morning. During the night Aurelien had antsy legs; he and Delphine talked a lot and kept Seb and me awake.
We woke up at 4:30 the next morning, packed up the tents, and were hiking by 5:15. It was cold. We all started out in pants. I even started hiking in my down jacket. It started cold and windy and stayed that way the entire time. We walked by headlamp for a bit, but the wide trail/road was easy to follow in the dark. The sun slowly started to light up the overcast sky. We passed the research station and observatory. They had some sheep in corrals. We climbed up past the station and at the next rise got a view of White Mountain. At this point the trail descended for a while before switchbacking up the side of the mountain. We still had probably two thousand feet and a few miles to climb to the summit. On the right we're getting ready for the final push to the top on one of our rare stops. For the most part it was too cold to stop. We'd only stop long enough to eat a little food, usually granola bars and fig newtons. The entire route was exposed, and the wind was really whipping.
Marissa toasting our successful ascent.
It took us four hours to get to the top. We didn't stick around for long. From the top we could see most of the Sierra range to the west. To the south I could see the Eureka Sand Dunes that I had climbed in Death Valley. Overall, White Mountain was easier to climb than Langley; the grade was pretty gentle, even if there was some up and down. There is a weather/research station on top; Seb looked at the weather records when we got back to San Diego; the station recorded a temperature of 25 F when we were at the summit. With the wind it was 12 F. Notice Seb's nice climbing pants. We gave him a bad time about wearing pajamas on the hike. I know we got up early, but everyone else remembered to put on their pants. Actually, those are Seb's typical hiking pants.
Here are some views of White Mountain from the descent. We're just getting ready to climb over the little hill near the observatory. At the observatory we had Delphine put on my down jacket because she couldn't get warm. We were back at the car and on the road by 1:00.
After a couple miles on the gravel road my check engine light came on. Sweet. (It shut off after we filled up with gas in LA.) We stopped at Grandview again for lunch. We were pretty hungry; we had eaten so little on the hike. We had Tito's Tacos for dinner in LA and dropped Marissa off in Huntington Beach. We got back to San Diego around 11:00.
