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US National Parks Inyo National Forest, California Schulman Grove

This is part one of our Inyo National Forest Site. Click the left turn sign to get back to the start page or the U-turn sign to get back to the national parks page.

The enormous age of the Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountain area was discovered in 1953 by Dr. Edmund P. Schulman, a scientist from Arizona who used the science of tree-ring dating to develop long-term climate models. In 1957, Schulman dated the oldest tree in the grove to be 4,723 years old. This tree, "Methuselah" remains today the world's oldest known living tree. It turned out later, that another tree in the grove actually reached an age of 4,950 years. Unfortunately, its age was discovered only after it was cut by a student as a research object. In 1958, Schulman's article in "National Geographic" brought worldwide attention to the White Mountains. Today, all the trees in the area are protected and the grove is named after its discoverer. Schulman Visitors Center

In order to protect it from souvenir hunters, the location of "Methuselah" is kept secret - all we know is that it is one of the trees along the Methuselah Trail. And since we took pictures of pretty much every tree in the grove, one of the pictures on this site shows the world's oldest Tree. We just don't know which one.

If these trees could talk they would tell us what it means to be 4,600 years old:

The oldest of us started growing at around the time when the Great Pyramid of Giza was completed (2600 BC). We were 600 years old when Stonehenge was completed (2000 BC) and 800 years at the beginning of the Bronze Age (1800 BC). When we were 1,100 years old (1500 BC) the Maya Civilization rose in Central America and when we were 1,300 years old (1300 BC), Moses lead the Hebrews from Eygpt to the land of Israel. Most of us were already 1,400 years old when the ancient Pueblo civilization rose in North America while at the same time, at the other end of the world, the Greeks fought in the Trojan War (1194 BC). We were 1,800 years old at the beginning of the Iron Age (800 BC) and some of us reached already 1,900 years when the city of Rome was founded (753 BC). We were close to 2,100 years old when Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment and founded Buddhism in India. When we were 2,400 years old, China's first emperor built the Great Wall of China (528 BC) and when we were 2,500 years old, Julius Caesar was born. We were 2,600 years old when Jesus Christ was born and 3,200 years old when Muhammad founded Islam (610). King William conquered England when we were 3,760 years old (1066) and Christoph Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean when we were 4,370 years old (1492). We were almost 4,400 years old when the United States declared independence and had reached the age of 4,450 when California joined the Union. And we keep getting older still!

We hope you enjoyed this little hike through the world's oldest forest as much as we did.

Click the right turn sign to move on to Part Two of this report.

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