Bristlecones to Mono Lake

 

Bristlecone Pine & Mormon Tea, Schulman Grove

After camping overnight we headed back up the mountain to hike the Shulman Grove's Methuselah Trail the day after visiting the Patriarch Grove. It was sunny and cool in the morning, making the four-and-a-half-mile hike about as comfortable as it gets at 10,000 feet of elevation.

This was the view from my camp chair the morning we drove up to the Patriarch Grove.

I couldn't resist trying to photograph the birds that passed through our camp, like this Blue-grey Gnatcatcher.

The only familiar face from San Francisco was this Hairy Woodpecker.

Gray Flycatcher

Juniper Titmouse

Western Warbling Vireo

This was the view at a pull-out above Grandview Campground the morning we drove up to hike at the Shulman Grove. Later in the day we'd break camp just ahead of a storm.

Morning Light on the Methuselah Trail

The bristlecones thrive wherever the soil is at its most hideously dolomitic best.

We were finally caught in a hailstorm as we drove up I-395, and I was amazed that our windshield didn't shatter under the assault. We stopped by Mono Lake since we were an hour early for our 4 o'clock check-in at the Lake View Lodge in Lee Vining. The osprey above was still occupying this lone burnt tree when we left.

There were several active osprey nests on the tufa towers, including one that you can just make out on the left-most tower above.

A few people were exploring the tufa formations despite the rain, but we took in the view from (mostly) inside the car.

P.S. I first visited the Bristlecone Pines in 1985, five years after I was a sailor aboard the USS Eisenhower when it set a record of 152 consecutive days at sea during a different crisis with Iran. That record stood until the USS Roosevelt beat it in 2002, only to be regained by the Ike during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. 

Now in the midst of Trump's war on Iran, the record has been blasted to pieces by the USS Lincoln with a massive 260 days and counting. 

Back in my day, many crewmembers, especially those with families, were so eager to return to Norfolk after setting that 1980 record that the captain cancelled a brief liberty port call at Mombasa, Kenya. We'd even already gotten all our necessary vaccinations for the trip. I was sick of being at sea too, but I still voted to make the port call. 

Anyway, congratulations to the resourceful and resilient crew aboard the USS Lincoln for setting a record that will hopefully last forever.

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Bristlecone Monsoon

 

Patriarch Grove, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

We got the tent down just ahead of the rain, then stopped the car on the way out of Grandview Campground to watch the heavy weather front coming in. Almost immediately two jagged bolts of lightning sizzled to the ground, one right after the other, setting off a torrent of sky-rending thunder that gave a dramatic and beautiful end to our visit.

We've made the pilgrimage to the bristlecones every few years for a couple of decades, but we'd never experienced them during monsoonal weather. As a photographer I'd been hoping for interesting clouds, but what we got was a totally stormy sky that unleashed a fair amount of rain -- and a lot of hail!

Heavy Weather in the Mountains

Some of the bristlecone pines pose with an air of drama fit for one of Mother Nature's most long-lived actors.

The grain of bristlecone pine wood, exposed to the elements for a couple thousand years, always entices me to admire the details of these amazing trees.

Ancient Wind Dancer

Exposed to the Ages

Fallen Bristlecone Pine Cone

My wife and I met back at the car as another rain squall drifted toward us, and she showed me a phone picture of this downed log that had collected a puddle of rainwater, something we'd never seen before at this grove that thrives despite poor soil and desert-like aridity. I took my camera over there as soon as the squall passed.

We waited to see if the clouds would open up to let the sun build a rainbow or two, but eventually realized it wasn't going to happen. Because we hadn't gotten anything but rain while up at the Patriarch Grove, we were perplexed to see so much white in the hills as we drove back down White Mountain Road.

On closer examination we saw that the "snow" was composed of little balls. It was hail, and there were gobs of it.

The unpaved 12-mile route to the Patriarch Grove was in the worst shape I've ever encountered. We can usually crawl along at 12 mph to avoid getting a flat tire (the ranger station had tallied 11 flats already this season), but this time I rarely broke 10 mph. A guy driving a Cybertruck down the mountain stopped next to us as we were on the way up and said, "Are you sure you want to be going up there in that?" I told him, "This car has been up a few times before. You don't need all that. It might be nice, but you don't need it."

Thunder in the Patriarch Grove

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Cooper's, Take 2

 

Cooper's Hawk, Golden Gate Park

It's so rare that I get to see Cooper's hawks up close that I decided to head down to the AIDS Memorial/Lily Pond area again this morning. (A phalanx of joggers trundled by while I was in the woods above the pond when one guy asked another, "What do they call that down there?" The other guy said, "It's called 'Random Swamp'. There's a bunch of 'em.")

The hawks were fairly easy to spot since they were calling out so often. They must hold their counsel once they reach adulthood. Although red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks can be heard screeching year round, I almost never hear an adult cooper's hawk, with the exception being around nesting season. Last spring I heard a pair in a tall redwood across from Mallard Lake, but it was not the same sound made by the begging juveniles.

This morning I stuck around longer in the hope of seeing an adult bring the juveniles some prey to share, but that never happened. One of the young hawks went after a squirrel, but the squirrel darted about and escaped up an oak tree. A little later the same hawk dove after a black phoebe, but that one also got away. A few minutes after the foiled phoebe foray, another squirrel ambled across the grass directly below the hawk and right in front of me, but the hawk didn't try again, even when the squirrel turned its back.

Pygmy Nuthatch

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Mini Cooper's

 

Mini Cooper, Maxi Hunger

I've been hearing the breathy screeching of juvenile cooper's hawks in various parts of Golden Gate Park the last few weeks, most recently adjacent to the Polo Fields where my wife and I got a good luck at one of them. I'd thought about going back down there with my camera, but before I could do it the area was taken over by construction crews setting up for Outside Lands. I thought I'd missed my chance until I heard their calls yesterday near the National AIDS Memorial Grove (where I last photographed a juvenile in April 2025).

This morning I biked down there and found not one, but three juvenile cooper's hawks hanging out close together in some acorn-festooned oaks between the memorial grove and Lily Lake. A nervous squirrel scuttled haltingly on branches high above the hawks, and I wondered if he would get his acorns or end up becoming a meal himself. 

A red-shouldered hawk screeched a few times from a tree on the other side of Lily Lake. The cooper's hawks seemed to respond with calls of their own, but they sounded almost like whispered screeches compared to the sharper, louder call of the red-shouldered hawk. Once heard, that unusual cooper's hawk screech won't soon be forgotten.

After the hawks flew away, a raven landed nearby to pluck berries from an Autumn Olive bush.

Busy Bushtit, SF Botanical Garden

I was surprised to see two pipevine swallowtail caterpillars still trying to make the most of what little pipevine leaves are still left. Luckily, the plants will regrow from rhizomes the caterpillars can't reach.

There was an interesting little bee inside a huge squash flower in the Children's Garden. Apparently, squash bees are a thing.

Chirping Hummer

On another note, if you're looking for some good summer reading, check out A Walk In The Park, by Kevin Fedarko. After seeing the paperback in a bookstore I borrowed the ebook from the library, then ended up buying his hiking partner's book of photography from the trip (The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim, by Pete McBride).

Grand Canyon Visit, 2004

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