Gnarly Trees and the Devil's Postpile

The Devil's Postpile - What a name (They told us that there are, in California alone, 150 geographical features that are blamed on the Devil - quite a record for a guy who isn't even supposed to exist). Note that these pieces of rock are quite long, regular and all about the same size. Sometimes, after being formed, they get bent...
And they're three-dimensional: Here's the top. It seems that if a lot of rock (Basalt, in this case) is spit up by a volcano, and is pretty uniform in composition and cools at exactly the same, rather slow, rate, it will contract little by ;little until a crack forms. This crack tends to propagpte in a straight line; after about 10 inches it splits into two cracks at 120 degree angles. These cracks in turn wioo split at the same angles, and voila! a whole array of hexagons, like a bee's honeycomb.
This pic is to show the size:
Sometimes the ends end up uneven - don't know why. There are quite a lot of these around, if you think to look for them. But this formation is the most reguar one known; over half of the posts are regular hexagons

Down a little stream, there is this, which I call the Elephant Rock. Looks like it's coming down to drink...

Everyone knows about the Appalachian Trail. However, there's also a Continentql Divide Trail, and this one, all in the state of California.
On the road -
Alpine flowers tend to be quite small, and exquisite:
The Bristlecones. Sequoia trees are the largest living things; California Redwoods the tallest; but Bristlecone Pines are the oldest. This is in eastern California, in the Sierra Nevadas This is all one tree; it is partly dead, but the part at the back could live on for centuries.

The needlesw-five in a bundle

The cones
The secrets of old age: The trees that grow on an exposed slope, in poor soils with little moisture, grow extremely slowly. This results in there being a lot of tannin in them, which kills the bugs that would eat them and the bacteria that would rot them. This makes them live a long time, and (along with the extreme altitude) keeps them from decaying even after they're dead.
Shakespeare, yet.
These are tree rings; they are really close together.
Now, this is copmplicated: Because there are unique combinations of dry and wet years, a particular sequence of thich and thin rings can be given a date. The oldest known living bristlecone is 4600 years old (the dendrochronologist - neat word, no? - who found it won't tell where it is, so that it won't be bothered). However, there are older ones that are dead but haven't decayed, so by matching these thick/thin sequences they can find wood even older, back some 6000 years.
The interesting part is that historians have dated wooden artifacts by radiocarbon dating: finding the ratio of radioactive Carbon-14 to normal Carbon-12. Since the C-14 decays at a known rate, and since the amount of C-14 in the tree when it was growing is known, this gives us the age of the tree.

However, for dates older than 200 years, this gave wrong answers. The problem turns out to be that the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere hasn't always been the same, due to sunspot cycles. But now, by comparing the tree-ring age of pieces of bristlecone with the radiocarbon dates, they have corrected the radioca4bon dates of these artifacts. Who knew?

The only other tree that can grow here is the Limber Pine.
These trees are incredibvle. The Japanese do wonderful things with Bonsai, but nothing like this.

Again, this is all one tree. Fire or erosion can tear away strips of bark and kill parts of the tree; but as long as a part of the tree has one strip of bark connecting it with the ground, that part can continue to grow.

One thing bristlecones have going for them is that they like very alkaline, dry soil, which almost nothing else can deal with. On this hill, the trees are spaced out, but nothing - not even grass or cactus - grows between them. The hill behind is entirely bare. This is in the Grove of the Ancients, at 10,500 feet.
Beautiful sunset - note the 'Glories' streaming down.