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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