Methuselah's Garden

The Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) are the oldest living things on Earth. The Schulman Grove, located in the White Mountains portion of Inyo National Forest in eastern California, is home to the oldest (publicly acknowledged) known tree which was measured by core samples to be over 4,700 years old! That tree was nicknamed 'Methuselah' after the oldest person in the Bible.

This panorama was not taken in front of Methuselah as there is an understood policy not to publish images of the tree itself to keep it safe from harm. Nor is it taken from anywhere near Methuselah, but the tree in the opening view here is a great example of how these amazing trees look. Many times most of the tree looks dead and the only living part is just a small portion on the downwind side.

This 'Garden' has been here since the time of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Not just looking like this, but perhaps some of these exact trees were saplings when they were being built. To be around a garden this old is an almost mystical experience and I hope that generations to come will be able to see these trees in all their ancient glory.

---

USA-Canada / USA-California

Lat: 37° 23' 9.34" N
Long: 119° 11' 45.68" W

Elevation: 10,082 ft

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

Hardware: Nikon D200, Nikkor 10.5mm Lens, Kaidan QuickPan III Spherical
Software: Kekus PanoTools Plug-ins, RealViz Stitcher, Photoshop CS, Enblend, CubicConverter, QT Player Pro, VRPrep