Dale,
Thanks for the description. With lots of ENTS sites for us to keep track of these days, it is fun to revisit old haunts. Even with MTSF and Ice Glen, I'm envious of you all in PA. You have so much territory with great possibilities. New England is much more limited. The really exciting possibilities are few and far between. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dale Luthringer" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: "Dale Luthringer (work)" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 9:31:51 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Cook Forest & Cooksburg business finds ENTS, On 10/24/08 I had the opportunity to measure some trees in a variety of areas in the park. There were a number of places I wanted to search or revisit, so this post is a compilation of those places. I first wanted to try to relocate and measure a fat black gum I found years ago in the Swamp Natural Area. Since I rarely go in this section of the park, I was thwarted on numerous previous attempts to relocate it due to unfamiliarity of the area and very flat terrain. There is a section in the Swamp Area in the emergent wetland section, near private land, that if you stay towards the upper end of the inlet, you can cross without getting your shins wet via hopping from hummock to hummock where the swamp pinches near its narrowest point. I know this section of the swamp well, but once I get on the northern side, this is where my "circling" habit begins. When I get onto dry land at this point, I always have a tendency to skirt the northern or left side of the wetland. I tried that today and easily re-located another black gum I wanted to get a height for, but the fat one continued to elude me. I continued skirting the northern rim, and had no luck. I started into my natural counter clockwise "circling" pattern, and proceeded to turn myself around. After correcting my bearing, I finally resorted to whipping out the compass to keep me on a general northerly heading towards the Baker Trail. Since I knew I wasn't going to find the fat black gum in this direction, I gave up the search until later when I would be heading back out towards the end of the trip. As I progressed in a northerly direction, the forest changed from distinct old growth hemlock forest to a mature hardwood stand dominated mostly by northern red, scattered sugar maple, and white ash. Found a decent red at 7.9ft CBH x 124.7ft high, which was a surprise for me finding one in this height class in this section of the park. After working in the park for 13 years and exploring numerous miles in the forest in that time, it was nice to finally search some new ground. No new records here, but the weather was great. The only limitation was that I wasn't getting much sleep during this time since my younest and largest "son" (kidney stone) soon to be, 'Spike', was currently sitting near "Mr. Prostate". Had a couple of old pain pills on hand if need be... better than sitting around in misery for days on end waiting for him to come out! Anyway... explored the flat then circled back around south in the flat behind the Brass Lantern B&B woods, and again skirted the edge of the emergent old growth forested wetland in the Swamp Area. Low & behold, I finally found that fat black gum I was looking for. When I first came in across the hummocks and pinch point I went left, and didn't find it. If I had went right, I would've eventually have run right into it. This particular black gum I named the "Chunk Meister" at 7.2ft CBH x 66.1+ft high. It has extremely thick/deep furrows and plates. The top is thinning bad, and the tree is generally on its way out. The chunks were so thick, it even had an ancient chestnut oak appearance. I'd love to get a core of this tree, but I don't think it'll be possible due to extensive rot. With other species in the park surpassing 350 years, I believe this black gum could also go into that category. It's definitely the fattest so far located in the park, and I highly doubt we'll find another to beat it. It's not large in terms of the max dimensions it can achieve in the east, but for this side of the state, I rarely find a forest grown black gum over 6.5ft CBH. This section in the vacinity of the Chunk Meister and flat behind the Brass Lantern contains an incredible ancient hemlock stand. I rarely get into this section of old growth. It had a very "Forest Cathedral" feel to it. Many ancient hemlocks, but not large as in other areas of the park. I then finished a northerly route out of the Swamp Area continuing to skirt the eastern edge of the swamp until I hit Greenwood Rd. I next proceeded to the Foundation Ridge Flat area of the park to re-measure the tallest pignut hickory in the park and the tallest known scarlet oak in the northeast. The pignut hickory got a little fatter, but noted no height change at 5.2ft CBH x 126.7ft high. The scarlet oak got a little fatter and a little higher and now stands at 8.3ft CBH x 121.5ft high. Next, I wanted to re-measure some trees at MacBeth's Cabins. There was a tallish Colorado blue spruce and red cedar I wanted to measure there. I also wanted to take a good look at some of their white pine and spruce growing along the downhill slope to the Clarion River west and adjacent to RT36. Remeasured the fat double E. red cedar (5.8ft CBH x 85.4ft high, 6.6ft CBH x 73.3ft high) in his parking lot and the tall blue spruce located behind the store (5.2ft CBH x 110.1ft high). Then proceeded to work my way on the contour along the slope south. In the vacinity of Cabin 15 there are a couple of planted catalpas, exact species unknown, but one in particular is the tallest documented catlapa in PA, maybe the NE, at 4.1ft CBH x 108.5ft high. Now THAT one was a surprise. A number of pines and spruce in the area were measured. The day's stats follows: Cook Forest trees Species CBH Height Location Comments black gum 4.9 81.1+ Swamp N.A. black gum 7.2 66.1+ Swamp N.A. Chunk Meister 41 23.548N x 79 12.473W N. red oak 9.9 117.7 Swamp N.A. N. red oak N/A 118.6 Swamp N.A. N. red oak 7.9 124.7 Swamp N.A. pignut hickory 5.2 126.7 Foundation Ridge Flat scarlet oak 8.3 121.5 Foundation Ridge Flat tallest documented NE sugar maple 8.9 105.1+ Swamp N.A white ash 5.3 113.7 Swamp N.A. MacBeth's Cabins trees Species CBH Height Location Comments butternut 4.1 66.1+ Cabin 15 catalpa 3.5 99.9+ Cabin 15 catalpa 4.1 108.5 Cabin 15 tallest documented NE chestnut X N/A 48.8 playground CO blue spruce N/A 98.5 CO blue spruce 5.2 110.1 store front E. red cedar (2x) 5.8 85.4 store front tallest known PA? 6.6 73.3 E. white pine N/A 105.5 Cabin 1 E. white pine N/A 111.9 Cabin 7 E. white pine N/A 111.9 Cabin 8 E. white pine N/A 112.1 Cabin 2 E. white pine N/A 114.8 Cabin 3 E. white pine N/A 118.2 Cabin 6 E. white pine N/A 120.9 Cabin 7 E. white pine N/A 121.7 Cabin 11 E. white pine N/A 123.7 Cabin 4 E. white pine N/A 128.7 Cabin 13 E. white pine N/A 129.1 Cabin 28 Norway spruce N/A 97.9 playground Noway spruce N/A 107.4 Norway spruce N/A 108.8 laundromat Norway spruce N/A 117 Cabin 17 It was a good day... 'Spike' decided to stay in a "happy place". Dale --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
