070708 Great Basin National Park

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I woke up with the sun, around 5 or 5:30, it was damn cold. I tried to start a fire, but it turned out to be too much trouble and I was getting light headed from trying to blow on the coals. I just used my backpacking stove and made instant oatmeal and hot chocolate and warmed my hands with the stove while the water boiled.

After eating, cleaning up (washing my tattoos in the cold morning was...well...cold!), and putting my gear in the truck I got to the trailhead for the Bristlecone Grove and Glacier about 7.

The forest was amazing, I've never hiked in such a dense forest with so many different kinds of trees. Back home it's mostly just plain old pine and they're ususally spaced fairly far apart. The ground was really rocky and as I got closer toward the Grove and Glacier the trail was almost entirely on the rocks.

The Bristlecone Pine tree is an amazing tree, they live in the coldest, most remote parts of the world where other trees cannot survive. They are extremely contorted due to high winds and the forces of glaciers. The wood is super dense and can survive freezing and extreme dry conditions of the Nevada desert. The grove in Great Basin National Park has the oldest trees in the world, one that's about 4,500 years old.

After the grove climbing to the glacier was exhausting, it was only another mile farther, but it was quite a climb. It was entirely on rocks, called moraine, which is the remnants of the glacier melting and gravity pulling the mountain apart. Once I arrived at the glacier I made a snowball and ate some snow, just because I could. Returning I did some off trail hiking down into a little rock valley because from the trail I could hear flowing water, it was the melting glacier feeding the local creeks. I walked down into the valley, but couldn't see any water, it was below the rocks, I could hear it just a few feet below me.

On the way back I went to a small lake and followed the small creek to the spring, it was beautiful. I ate a small snack and snapped a few photos and then headed back.

I left the campsite about 11 after re-arranging my gear and left toward Gooding, Idaho, which is the closest reference point to my new job.

I just arrived in Twin Falls, Idaho (about 6) to update this blog and have my last phone access for 16 days.

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Comments

[Rick]

Great tree...
I just watched my planet earth DVD about the world's forests, and it mentioned that forest and tree, specifically. Hope all is well. http://ramatheson.com