One thinks of the Sierra Nevada range as having tall moutains, but the next range over - the White Mountains - are nothing to sneeze at. Indeed I had somewhat underestimated them. We had spent a day or two at about 7,000 ft and descended to about 5,000 and in the spare hours before the Caltech reunion, I thought we might nip over to the bristlecone pine forest.
The bristlecone pines are one of the oldest continuously living organisms on the planet - some are over 4,000 years old. This is apparently possible because they live in highly alkaline soil at above 10,000 feet, under extremely hostile conditions that are forbidding to potential competitors.
Now this is pretty damn old. Think about how long ago Caesar was overthrowing the Roman Republic. Then think about how he might have viewed a mystical figure perhaps from Crete, 2,000 years older than him. Around the time that guy was born, some pine seedlings poked their tops above the snow way up in the White Mountains.
Incidentally, history is old. That Cretan fellow 2,000 years older than Caesar? He thinks of the Great Pyramids as being a couple hundred years old.
