Across the Owens Valley from the East Sierras lies the White Mountains home to the oldest trees in the world.
Some are over four thousand years old.
Through the millenia the parts of the tree wounded by fire and lightning drop off. Parts of the tree begin to grow in it's place.
The tree grows in shale rock on the hottest slopes of the mountain where nothing else can survive.
Through a short hot summer and cold long winter, the wood grows dense and hard preventing insects from damaging them.
The oldest are the smallest