Part 5, the Descent
So now we walk down through the pine forest on this trail, with plentiful shade, until we get about halfway down:
About halfway down we run into a plateau with rocky soil and there are bristlecone pines again, so we look back at Mummy mountain:
And we look down at Las Vegas (that double-peaked low mountain left center of the next photo is the Sunrise-Frenchman mountain that marks the eastern extent of the Las Vegas Valley):
And we look into the desert far below:
And we look across to the Sheep Range:
And we look at the observatory that is part of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and is always pointed away from Las Vegas!
And as previously noted, halfway down we have hit a small plateau are of very rocky soil again, and we see more bristlecone pines!
The sight of a "young" bristlecone next to a dead one that had fallen over reminded me of the continual renewal of life, a cycle that we too are a part of:
As we get back to the car, this is the sight that greets us, we are still at 8,430 feet, and the rest of the descent is via automobile (I am ~45 minutes from home at this point):
People who are used to seeing my web pages may rightly ask: weren't there any flowers along the way? Thanks for asking! Very small flowers were indeed in many places, and here are a few examples:
But the real life story told in these pages is the story of the ancient ones. As I have explained before, those of us in our 60's will have a hard time finding a structure in Las Vegas that is older than we are. So, to be able to get a grip on time and its meaning, we have to scramble to see the ancient ones surrounding us on our mountains. That is what we did today, me and you.
Some years ago I did the same sort of thing on the Bristlecone Pine Trail on another part of the Spring Range and for a little while had National Public Radio interested in doing a story on these trees and the life-perspective they can give a person. I did not react fast enough, and an identical story was done in Arizona, on its Hualapai Mountain near Kingman, with the narrator being an Arizona State Park forest ranger. It was wonderfully done and I enjoyed it very much.
In the meantime, one of my photos from that web page won a monthly picture contest in the tourist magazine "Las Vegas Now" (see page 77 of the Holiday 2005 issue). This is that photo (it is the first photo on this page):
:
Hope you enjoyed our little walk. I did.
Go Back to First Raintree Page: Arrival
Go Back to Second Raintree Page: Raintree neighbors
Go Back to Third Raintree Page: Raintree
