Last Sunday, my buddy Eric and I, on a whim, jumped in his Rav 4 and headed up to the White Mountains to try our luck with the Ancient Bristlecone Forest. Both of us have shot the Schulman Grove before, but we really wanted to head farther out to the Patriarch Grove to explore.

We had tried this a couple of years ago, but we were turned back due to huge drifts of snow that had survived into June. We had actually snuck past the road closed barrier thinking that they couldn't possibly be referring to my Toyota FJ only to find huge drifts of snow about a mile or so in. We beat a hasty retreat and vowed to try it again when the tiny access road wasn't buried in several feet of snow.

We had much better luck this year, and were surprised at how green everything was this late in July. It was a clear afternoon and the views of the Sierras across the valley were simply epic. We didn't quite make it all the way out to the Patriarch Grove as we ran into a road closed barrier about a mile before the parking area. Not all of the snow had melted off and there was still a small glacier blocking the road. We were planning on hoofing it in when we stopped to look around and found some other interesting Bristlecones nearby.

I've posted a couple of shots from this forest before, but in case you missed those or are unfamiliar with the background of these incredible trees, many of the trees in this area are upwards of 3000 years old and are considered to be some of the oldest living organisms on earth.

Eric and I had been watching the clouds since we first noticed them just South of Lone Pine, but we tried not to get our hopes up. Both of us have been skunked dozens of times before, so we have come to expect disappointment on a fairly regular basis. On this occasion, however, the high clouds stubbornly refused to disappear and as sunset drew near, we both headed off in different directions to look for comps. I had gone only a short way when I noticed this guy high up on the ridge. As I set up my gear and waited for the light to do something, it was easy to imagine this particular tree keeping a silent vigil, watching hundreds of thousands of sunsets over the course of his life. His vigil was upwards of 3000 years. Mine was...um...30 minutes. :)

The sky began to light up, but just as suddenly, all of the light suddenly vanished and the clouds returned to a sullen gray. I realized that the sun was now behind the Sierras and also behind a bank of clouds off to the West, and that the show was probably over. Remembering that it's not really over until it's over, I dug in and waited. Sure enough, 10 minutes later a faint streak of pink appeared on the ridge over on my left. Then a bit more. And then the whole sky was glowing.

I was smiling pretty broadly at this point and I found myself wondering...if you've been on this earth for 3000 years...does this ever really get old?


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OK…so technically I was still getting over the flu and bronchitis and Eric was still dealing with a kidney stone, but there was a new moon and both of us had been stuck at home for two weeks…and our doctors didn’t really SAY we couldn’t pull an all nighter while shooting in 20 degree temps….so...of course... off we went.

Last Friday, we headed out around noon to beat the traffic and even though we got stuck in the holiday malaise and had to fight our way out of the Cajon Pass, we pulled into Lone Pine around 4 PM and grabbed some early dinner at Carl’s Jr while we strategized. It was decided that we should bail on the Alabama Hills as it would most likely be a zoo on a holiday weekend and head instead to the White Mountains. I was kicking myself at this point for not remembering that we would be shooting above 9000 feet and while I remembered the big jacket, I left the warm socks, gloves and cap at home.

We made it up to Shulman Grove just before sunset and had an epic view of the snow capped Sierras across the valley as the beams of the sun died away. After scouting our favorite tree to see when we could expect the Milky Way, we thought we should explore a bit more. We were bummed to see that the road to Patriarch Grove was closed due to “Heavy Snow” but we were in the FJ and figured the park rangers were just being overly cautious. So….we MAY have driven around a barricade or two. After driving in about 2 miles or so, we could see very clearly that the rangers weren’t exaggerating with their warning. The drifts were now at least 5 feet high and what wasn’t covered in snow was buried in mud. Not wanting to be the idiot who drove past all the warning signs only to get stuck, I shifted into 4 wheel drive and cautiously made my way back to Shulman Grove. As a side note, it you are planning to shoot the Patriarch grove this Summer, it might be a bit of a wait as there was a TON of snow up there after only 2 miles in. And it’s almost June!

One of my main goals in shooting in the white mountains on this trip was to get the full arch of the Milky Way above a Bristilecone pine. Many of the trees in this area are over 3000 years old. I was freezing my butt off as we began shooting, and it steadily got colder as the night wore on. Eric and I shot for around an hour or so before we saw some headlights. About 15 minutes later we were joined by Mike Kukucska who was a fellow landscape photographer from Ontario, Canada. Mike was also into low level lighting and he and Mike began to experiment while trying to get the right glow on the tree we were shooting. We shot until almost 2 AM and then it was time for the long drive home.

I love the juxtaposition in this particular shot as this tree, which has been alive for most of recorded human history, is set against the arch of the Milky Way, which has been glowing for billions of years. The ancient against the eternal.

In terms of settings, I took this shot with the Rokinon 12mm 2.8 fisheye which has been my go-to lens on many of my recent Milky Way trips. Single exposure, F2.8, ISO 3200 at 25 seconds.

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Tags:   White Mountains Schulman Grove Bristlecone Pine Ancient Milky Way Nikon D810 Rokinon 12mm, 2.8 Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

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For over 5000 years, the bristlecone pine trees of the White Mountains have been reaching towards the stars. It is believed several of these trees are among the oldest living organisms on earth. The shoots of these particular trees were already starting to grow as Stonehenge, the city of Troy, and the tombs of the Pharaohs were being built. It was a truly humbling experience to stand in front of these trees that have been growing in silence in these mountains for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

This particular tree has been photographed by several landscape photographers but I hadn't come across any photos of it until I became interested in Milky Way photography. After finding some amazing photos online, I set off a few weeks ago with hopes of photographing them only to find the entire stretch of the Owens valley covered in clouds and smoke from the area fires. I finally had to give up and ended my day at Olmsted Point in Yosemite instead.

Last Tuesday, I set off again and was pleased to find only partly cloudy skies as I arrived 5 1/2 hours later. There were only a couple of cars left in the parking area as I arrived, but it seemed they were all on their way out. It wasn't long before I was the only one left in the Schulman Grove. I was making all kinds of noise as I set off on the upper trail, but whenever I stopped to take a shot, the silence around me was deafening. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember quite where this particular tree was, and I spent nearly 3 hours hiking to the top of a couple of different ridges looking for it. Finally, as the last of the light was fading, I decided to head further down the lower trail, even though the trail led away from the trees and out into what appeared to be nothing worth shooting. After several minutes of hiking, the trail suddenly ducked around a bend and my tree finally came into view.

I looked at dozens of gnarled and twisted trees that evening, but none of them came close to this one. Special thanks to Ryan Engstrom and Michael Bandy for helping me out by confirming that this Tree was located not far off the trail in the Shulman Grove area of the park. There were several other trees that I wanted to shoot, but those will have to wait until my next trip.

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Tags:   Bristlecone Pine White Mountains Milky Way

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A few weeks ago I suggested to my shooting buddy Eric that we head off toward the Eastern Sierras to grab some shots since the light looked like it might be good up that way. After kicking around some ideas (Alabama Hills was forecast to be in the low 100's = bad idea) we decided to head somewhere a bit cooler and settled on the White Mountains. When we arrived, we were pleased to see that the road past Shulman Grove was now open. Eric was driving his Rav 4 and I was able to do a bit of scouting on my way up. I was originally looking for ancient Bristlecone Pines since that is the primary reason that anyone would be driving on this little dirt road in the middle of nowhere, but as we came around a corner, something caught my eye.

"Is that where we're going?" I asked, pointing up at the tiny goat path of a road that seemed to wind it's way over a ridge into oblivion. "Yep. And that's nothing. Wait until we get into the Patriarch Grove. That's where the road REALLY gets bad." he replied.

Soon I found myself fascinated by the road almost as much as the 3000 year old trees we were driving past. It wound its way across 11,000 foot peaks carelessly, assuming whatever vehicle you were driving would make it up there. This particular section jumped out at me. Something about the way that the road threaded itself over the ridge reminded me, not surprisingly, of something out of Lord Of The Rings. It had a sort of cinematic, story book feel to it.

So fast forward to last Friday night. It's 7 PM and I suddenly see that Skyfire, Sunsetwx, and Ventusky are all pointing to a strong sunrise for Saturday morning East of Bishop and some sunset light later that night. Four hours later, I had re-installed the rooftop tent on the FJ and was bouncing my way up the 395 toward the Owens Valley. I pulled an all nighter, stopping for a couple of quick naps, and arrived in the White Mountains at 4:30 AM. Later that night, as they sky was still forecast to light up, I returned and climbed the ridge behind the road and found myself with a panoramic view of the Eastern Sierras with the lights from Bishop twinkling several thousand feet below me. Unbelievably, the sunset light stuck around and I spent a solid hour up there shooting in all directions. I grabbed this shot just before the sun dropped behind Mammoth Mountain in the distance.

I quickly became enamored by this area and made quite a few trips up and down the road between the Schulman and Patriarch Groves over the following two weekends after my trip up with Eric. The views of the Eastern Sierras are simply jaw dropping, and on wet years, like this one, the green hillsides and valleys in the White Mountains look almost European, and those ancient, twisted, Ent looking trees are everywhere.

The bummer is that this area, like Glacier Point and Tioga Pass over to the West, is only open a few months out of the year. The last stretch of road out to the Patriarch Grove just opened last week and unlike Yosemite, not much work is done on this road to prepare it for the Summer. They just wait for that massive amount of snow melt each year. In any case, I hope to get at least one more trip in this year before the gates close. My next chance to shoot will most likely be next July. And in case you are wondering...I will most definitely be back.

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Tags:   White Mountains Sunset Patriarch Grove

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per·se·vere
/ˌpərsəˈvir/
verb
to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement

For the past two to three thousand years, this tree has been dug into this mountainside standing virtually alone as most of his brothers are located in a grove a bit further below. Standing bravely at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet, I would imagine this tree has been buried under dozens of feet of snow, stood against 100 mph winds and endured horrible years of drought. And yet...here it still stood as I came across it last week on a scouting trip through the White Mountains with Greg Boratyn and Eric Gail.

I would say that perseverance is something that all of us need at the moment. We have a pandemic that some are predicting could last until next Spring...or beyond, an election that has people screaming at each other almost non-stop, and protests that have had people marching in almost every major city across our country. If you watch either side of the news for longer than a couple of hours, you really begin to feel like your head will explode.

Which makes it all the more amazing when you head off to the mountains and you come across something that has stood up against everything that nature has thrown at it for literally thousands of years. Suddenly you begin to feel like the end of 2020 is really not that far off. I was just watching an old episode of "The West Wing" tonight and the phrase that jumped out at me was "The things that unite us are far greater than the things that divide us" which, after snooping around, seems to be a quote from the late John F Kennedy. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I'm hoping that this quote is still true today. And in spite of a pandemic, a contentious election and nightly violent protests...our country and its people will persevere.

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Thank you so much for your views and comments! If you have specific questions or need to get in touch with me, please be sure to send me a message via flickr mail, or feel free to contact me via one of the following:

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Tags:   Bristlecone Ancient White Mountains Sunset

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