Jared Friedman found a whitebark pine in Grand Teton National Park that was about 1,289 years old when mountain pine beetles killed it in 2021. It is the oldest recorded whitebark pine, 22 years older than the previous record; Friedman counted 1,275 rings and modeled 14 more.
Friedman encountered the gnarled, spindly tree in Paintbrush Canyon while studying why whitebark pines die. It stood under 30 feet tall, and its tightly packed rings were invisible to the naked eye; he examined a core sample under a microscope and used a model to account for 14 rings between the sample and the tree’s center.
Whitebark pines grow slowly in high-elevation areas with harsh conditions, poor soils and limited nutrients, a pace that can help them survive for centuries. Biology professor Diana Tomback said aging them is difficult and trees this old may be less rare than the record suggests. Mountain pine beetles are native, and their population is growing and expanding with climate change, increasingly threatening the pines.
