Gary Dielman spends time each summer hiking in the Elkhorn and Wallowa Mountains.  One of his hobbies is to climb to the tops of high peaks on clear days and take 360-degree snapshots of the view.  Back home in his exercise room, he pastes the photos together in their proper sequence and makes a long arc on the wall showing the entire 360-degree panorama.

On one of these expeditions Gary found the old, weathered downed snag of a white bark fir at the top of the mountain above Summit Lake in the Elkhorn Mountains.  The growth rings of the recumbent snag were plainly visible.  They were very close together, and exceedingly numerous.

Using the point of his knife as a moveable reference marker, Gary tediously counted every second ring.  He got to 800!  That white bark fir had been older than any tree reported in the Elkhorn Mountains.

On another excursion to the top of Cusick Mountain in the Wallowas in 2002, Gary decided to descend a different way from the way he'd ascended.  By taking that route he discovered an ancient limber pine growing in the open on the rocky side of the mountain.  Subsequent research revealed that limber pines have only been reported to grow in New Mexico, Colorado, the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, and in this little, isolated pocket in the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon.

The tree had four tops, only one of which was living.  The tree was gnarled and twisted.  The base was huge.  Gary's pictures of the tree, with his pack set up beside it, make the pack look tiny, indeed.  A rope stretched around the contortions and convolutions of the trunk required 50 feet to meet itself again.

A tree in New Mexico is estimated to be 1,670 years old.  One recently discovered in Utah is over 1,700.  Gary's tree is perhaps the oldest living thing in the Pacific Northwest.  Its age is yet to be determined.  The tree's home is the harsh, alpine environment of the near-barren slope of a mountain.  How many winter storms, hurricane velocity winds, and summer lightning strikes has this venerable tree endured in its long life?