The Bristlecone Pine of White Mountain

High in California's White Mountains, at nearly 12,000 feet, stands a bristlecone pine named Methuselah. It has endured for over 4,800 years in conditions that would kill almost any other living thing — alkaline soil with almost no nutrients, annual rainfall under twelve inches, winds that howl at seventy miles per hour, and temperatures that plunge far below zero. By every measure, this tree should not exist.…