The Patriarch Tree

The largest bristlecone pine in the world does not look the part. Most of the ancient bristlecones around it are twisted into knots and ribbons of bare wood; the Patriarch is broader and comparatively straightforward, a heavy trunk of a tree in a landscape that seems to have given up on trees. It stands in the Patriarch Grove, at about 3,440 metres in California's White Mountains, on ground that is mostly bare rock. This is the species that holds the record for longevity. Methuselah, down in the Schulman Grove area, has been dated at 4,858 years. The Patriarch is a different tree in a different grove, and its fame is size, not age. Both sources we used call it the largest bristlecone by trunk volume, and neither gives a number for its height, its girth or its age. Methuselah's figure is not the Patriarch's, and nobody we can find has published how old the Patriarch is. If you know of a core or a count, tell us. Getting there is part of it. From the Schulman Grove visitor centre, where the modest entry fee is paid, a rough but maintained dirt road runs about 21 kilometres north; take a spare tyre. The tree is almost the first thing on the Timberline Ancients Trail from the grove's car park. The forest is generally open from mid-May through November, weather permitting.