A Labor Day Adventure White Mountain Peak, Methusala, and the Inyo National Forest Fires
Itinerary:
Day 0: Drive from SF Bay Area to Big Pine, California (~6 hours); Rendez-vous with friends and load hiking gear into the souped-up Jeep, leave Big Pine for Bristlecone Pine Scenic Byway and arrive at White Mountain Peak Base Camp about 28 miles and 1.5 hours later.
Day 1: Leave Base Camp (10,800 ft) for White Mountain Peak summit (14,252 ft) and return; spend the night at Base Camp, given camping restrictions and closed campgrounds throughout Inyo National Forest (16 miles, 3,452 ft elevation gain).
Day 2: Awake to a thick, smoky sky; Depart Base Camp by 8am for Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Schulman Grove; Hike Methuselah Trail (4.5 miles and 900 ft elevation gain); drive back to Big Pine and receive alerts about wildfires and evacuation; return to SF Bay Area (about 8 hour return drive).
Day 1
Mostly an uneventful drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to the meeting point in Big Pine, California (366 miles) aside from this spectacular moment. After merging onto US 395-South, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see a small break in the smoke — foreshadowing my treasured one and a half day of blue skies.
We kept a 40mph steady pace on the Bristlecone Pine Scenic Byway all 28 miles to base camp, which was shockingly smooth. Not sure how often it is graded, but it was certainly child’s play compared to some of the other roads I’ve been on. (Nothing crazier than the Anza Borrego desert approach to Goat Canyon Trestle.)
The middle section was paved before dumping us back on the dirt road just beyond the Bristlecone Pine Forest turnoffs. While little more jumpy than the beginning it would have still been passable by a low clearance sedan. In fact, the award for boxing above its class goes to a Chevy Spark (with Wyoming plates), looking a bit like a fish out of water parked at the base of the mountain. That said, someone on a forum reported it cost $1,000 to be towed out of here. Considering the remoteness, that is believable.
Part of me didn’t know what to expect in terms of traffic, but it was a popular destination — probably because many of the major routes are shut down with the wildfires and quarantine. And White Mountain Peak requires no permit. All that is needed? A solidly-built enough car to make the journey and a measure of physical fitness to propel yourself to the 14er summit.
Above, you can see an aerial shot of base camp taken during a noticeably less gusty dusk period. I ended up sleeping cowboy-style under the stars after forgetting to pack my tent poles, a very real consequence of my last-minute packing. Fortunately, while the winds were severe, the temperature didn’t drop below the mid-40s.
After arriving, we dined on a takeout box of ribs and pulled pork sandwich, snagged from Copper Top BBQ restaurant in town. I felt thoroughly sated when crawling into my down sleeping bag to prepare for the pre-dawn rise.
Day 2
We awoke with just enough time to stuff my sad sleeping bag campsite into my friends’ tent before hitting the trail by 6:30am, aiming to beat many of our fellow car campers to the trail. Apart from wanting to get a headstart, we agreed to take it easy given the altitude.
After two miles, we stopped at the UC WMRS Observatory and Research Center for a quick hydration, snack break, and and layer change; 2500 more feet net (or 3200 feet gross) to climb before the summit.
A unit of the University of California Natural Reserve System, and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, these facilities boast the highest research lab and the highest Internet node in North America. An award-winning documentary tells more on the premiere field stations’ impact on earth and environmental science, especially regarding life in unique environments where life exists at the edge of extremes.
Not long after this very distant Bighorn Sheep spotting, we reached the summit around 10:20am. The reward? Pour over coffee and orange blossom tea with bagels, cream cheese, and slices of spicy mango.
Coming down the mountain, we were struck by this startling cloud formation. Once back in cell reception territory we were floored to discover that what looked like a supernatural Greek mythology creation was actually an extreme manifestation of a cumulonimbus flammagenitus, also known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a fire-aided or caused convective cloud. These types of formations are caused by heat sources, such as the Creek Fire that broke out on Labor Day Weekend, 2020. Early indications have some atmospheric scientists already suggesting that this might be one of the largest (if not the largest) pyrocumolonimbus events seen in the United States.
For context and gravity, the plume in the historic “Hiroshima strike” photo was misidentified as a mushroom cloud from the atomic bomb blast on 6 August 1945. However, in March 2016, the cloud was acknowledged as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, forming above the city some three hours after the nuclear blast once the firestorm reached its peak.
NASA released its own hazards article following the event. Fortunately, we stumbled on back to our base camp blithely unaware of the massive wildfire sparked the day before by a couple’s pyrotechnic-fueled gender reveal party. I don’t know how easily I would have slept knowing that, a few days later, our entire camp was evacuated as the nearby Inyo National Forest also caught flame.
Day 3
Ignorant of the nearby record-setting firestorm, it was as uneventful night, save for a few cars coming and going and one particularly shrill ATV. By 6:50am we were packed and out, remarking on the poor air visibility amidst an eery goodbye send-off from a pack of heretofore quiet coyotes. In hindsight, the coyotes definitely foreshadowed the end of my much-missed blue sky and return of the now-familiar ashy, toxic air.
We drove the packed Jeep back along the Bristlecone Scenic Byway towards our planned hike in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. The first turn-off on the return trip was Patriarch Grove, home to the tallest Bristlecone Pine. We were in search of the oldest. A quick u-turn back on the road and we found the sign. Schulman Grove: home of Methuselah and the oldest living (non-clonal) organism in the world. We started the 4.5 trail through the ancient trees around 8am, but half-way through were struggling to breathe given the smoke blown eastward overnight from the fast-approaching fires.
Morning is the time to see these gnarled, twisted trees, they glow in the east sun and on select sides of the mountain face. I kept reminding myself that I was walking among the oldest living beings on earth. Some of the trees in this grove were over 4,700 years old!
Unfortunately the air quality on this day was horrible. Smoky haze that made it difficult to breathe in the high desert setting.
Portions of the trail didn’t have any bristlecone pines at all. We suspected it had to do with exposure to sun.
I found it bizarre how a forest boasting the oldest living organisms in the world could feel so devoid of life. Perhaps it was the fires, but I didn’t hear a single bird the entire two hour trek.
Growing fast and tall makes the trees more vulnerable, as the bark doesn’t get the same chance to harden and fill with resin — crucial developments to the pines’ trademark insect resistance. Counterintuitively, the older ones tend to be short and squat. And also bald.
These pines can lose as much as 90% of their bark and still survive! As to what causes them to sustain so much damage? I have no idea. They are resistant to pests (including the pine trees mortal enemy: the mountain pine beetle) and their habitual growing distance, limited by the alkaline, nutrient-light soil, makes the forest naturally resistant to wildfires.
I’m definitely bookmarking the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest for my doomsday shelter destination.
