The oldest trees and the wettest hike

A truly immersive wild experience

Here’s a fun fact I think counts as “queer ecology”: Bristlecone pines have both male and female cones on the same tree. They remain fertile for their whole life; trees that are 50 years old, 500 years old, or over 1,000 years old can produce cones with seeds that grow new trees.

But more importantly, the ancient bristlecone pine forest contains the oldest trees in the world. The oldest living tree is over 4,700 years old. Hard to comprehend with our human minds!

The unique climate (dry and hot for a 45-day summer growing season, icy much of the rest of the time) allowing the bristlecones to thrive also preserves their dead wood for an exceptionally long time. Many of the old trees have a trunk that’s mostly dead, with a stripe of live bark running from the eroded roots to the living needles.

Scientists have found dead tree trunks that started growing 11,000 years ago (and the wood is still on the ground, not decayed, today). By taking core samples (a thin cylinder of wood drilled out of the trunk, so as to not destroy it), scientists have constructed a record of tree rings, showing the climate and other events like a volcanic eruption over thousands of years. These tree samples were used to calibrate radiocarbon dating, making historical dates more accurate all over the world.

After visiting the ancient bristlecone pines, we drove east to Las Vegas and then to Zion National Park in Utah. The Narrows in Zion is one of the most exceptional hikes I’ve ever walked. It’s not a trail next to the river, the trail is the river, winding through high, curved canyon walls.

The water was not too cold, and ranged from ankle deep to chest deep (in one place right at the beginning). Wearing Teva sandals, a t-shirt and shorts and carrying a hiking pole and backpack, it was quite the plunge into the water up to my mid chest, walking slowly through opaque water with sediment in it, with my partner and a cohort of other hikers working on getting through to reach the rest of the canyon.

I spotted the most colorful blue-tailed skink on a rock next to the water:

I feel lucky and grateful to visit these beautiful, unique, and special places. Being out in the wild is sometimes challenging (you can’t just step into the shower or log onto the internet everywhere) but I learn so much from the places I visit and the creatures, plants, fungi, and humans I meet.

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Happy publication day to Jennifer Lang, author of Places We Left Behind! (Amazon affiliate link)

I loved this memoir of negotiating boundaries and nurturing identity and interests while growing a family. Even though Jennifer Lang and her husband are both Jewish, they are observant in different ways. If that wasn’t challenging enough, each of them considers a different part of the world home.

Lang and her husband become each other’s only constant in a bewildering number of moves between countries. I appreciated seeing glimpses of different cultures through Lang’s perspective, and gaining a deeper understanding of how a marriage can be loving and stable despite the odds.

This is a great book if you are looking for a thought-provoking but quick read. I’ve recommended the unique formatting and pace of this memoir to several friends: vivid, brief glimpses into a relationship of twenty years. Each vignette is no longer than a page and is reminiscent of a photo album, lovingly captioned.

This book spoke to me because I have negotiated who I am in every relationship. I’ve made different life choices than Lang, but I found wisdom and guidance in her story of lifelong love and respectful negotiation to protect her own identity.

Check it out on Amazon (affiliate link) or your favorite bookseller or library!

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For more mountains, lakes, and wildlife, check out my trip videos on:

YouTube (videos of full hikes!): https://www.youtube.com/@reywrites

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reywrites

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reywrite/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rreykatz

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Take care,

Rey