The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is a protected area high in the White Mountains in Inyo County in eastern California.
The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is home to the oldest trees in the world, bristlecone pines. Some of these living trees exceed 4000 years of age and exhibit spectacular growth forms of twisted and beautifully colored wood.
Beyond Schulman Grove lies the Patriarch Grove, 12-miles north on a good quality dirt road. Patriarch Grove is home to the world’s largest bristlecone pine, the Patriarch Tree. Its splendid remoteness and moonscape appearance gives the Patriarch Grove a surreal atmosphere. Bristlecone pines and limber pines dot the landscape with a background view of the Great Basin in Nevada.
The two groves are usually accessible when the winter snows have melted, between late May and mid November, and one full day is enough to visit both, and walk all the trails. The nearest town is Big Pine, 23 miles from the Schulman Grove and 6,000 feet below, with more facilities 15 miles north in Bishop.
The bristlecones grow together with limber pines (pinus flexilis), a more traditionally-sized species, also distinguished by its longer needles, which lack resin dots, and by its larger cones.
Visitors say they feel a sense of awe and peace when they walk the trails that weave through the groves of old and young bristlecones. The views out across the Owens Valley to the west and the Great Basin of Nevada to the east offer a perspective that cannot be seen anywhere else.
FIRE
On September 4, 2008, an arsonist set fire to the Schulman Grove Visitor Center and several bristlecone pines. The building and all the exhibits within were destroyed. Activities to rebuild the center began the next day and are now complete.
VISITING
* Schulman Grove and Schulman Grove Visitor Center – daily interpretive talks and natural history lectures mid-June through Labour Day, and hiking trails.
* Patriarch Grove – home of the world’s largest bristlecone pine, the Patriarch Tree, and a self-guided nature trail.
Tree Weaver 