Bristling

• skip this post if you don't have an hour to kill and haven't read the previous !

 Long story short , I had a rough go this morning . Life can mystify . Actually, the older I get the more it does . Almost didn't go . Road was closed . Bucci was cranky . Banged my head . Blood everywhere.  I was willing to chalk up Great Basin in the loss column. Closed . Like so much of life . But I gave it a shot and went up to see if I could . Anyway . And dang if it wasn't heaven on earth .

This place. These trees . Are so so old. And so much dignity. Beauty . Grace. And all amid so much struggle . Many of the living , had been born a thousand years before Christ . Not too too long after the end of the last ice age . Some of the trees that weren't living had been born way before that . And they didn't look all that dead . The wood still had color . Amazing . Growing in a pile of rocks ! What is it about seeing such stark , striking beauty that makes you see your life differently ? Makes you happy to be alive ? Makes you want to never stop seeking it ?

The thing here , for me , that makes it so fantastic  …..Joshua Tree is incredible . Yosemite is a temple . Glacier , Yellowstone are overwhelmingly beautiful . I can't wait for the canyons of the southwest . But there is a combination of Alpine &  Desert  beauty here , blended into an incredible sense of antiquity that stops your heart and makes you laugh somehow at the same time .

Lots of tree hugging pics .
If I get a chance I will add some captions

there was a side trail where a handful of the trees had been singled out with interpretive signs

it is difficult to describe how alive these ancient trees projected

Ents

the tree on the right was over a thousand years old . the one on the right had been dead for hundreds and still the wood had color

bristle kindergarden