I invited my son, Elijah, to join me, knowing he wouldn't be able to resist an adventure in a park we hadn't yet been to, especially one where starry nights and ancient bristlecone pines beckoned.

This Nevada park gets 3 percent of the visitors Yosemite does--more room for you to take in ancient bristlecone pines, Lehman Caves, and starry night skies.

The Great Basin National Park is home to bristlecone pines, one of the oldest known living tree species.

Caption: Having survived more than 4,000 years in what is now California's Inyo National Forest, ancient bristlecone pines remind us how our distant ancestors must have seen the stars every night.

Bristlecone pines are the oldest known living things on earth.

Moon focuses on specific species in this collection, including baobabs, bristlecone pines, junipers, Joshua trees, oaks and more.

I climb into Thompson's truck and we take a detour, into the bristlecone pines. The trees, among the oldest living things on Earth, grow near the timberline, at about 10,000 feet.

Remember too that using native plants helps retain the unique flavor of the area; white oak trees and spreading dogbane evoke the singular place "Toronto" while Garry oak and arbutus proclaim "Victoria" The marvelous old-growth olive trees at Gethsemane that I saw last winter somehow combine the gnarled quality of ancient bristlecone pines with centuries of careful cultivation; they are utterly biblical and completely Jerusalem, being native to the area.

Bristlecone pines are the oldest single organisms on Earth.

"We did a lot of hiking and found a couple of sites of bristlecone pines, and one in particular that we honed in on," said Routson.

Environment in relation to age of bristlecone pines. Ecology 50:53-59, doi:10.2307/1934662.