Bob- Great report Bob! And one that brought back faint recall (I think?) of us going up into the hopper in leaf off season, perhaps one of the first OG Symposiums? The fact that the memory is faint is probably in direct proportion to the steepness of the approach...;>} I don't know what Ed was talking about! I thought you looked the compleat country gentleman, much more dapper than the camo panted, belly-packed chap I recall! Looks like the perfect hat for a very tall G and T chimney glass, condensation.... Great photos! I'm on business tomorrow in Fairbanks, measuring three candidate Alaskan Big Trees! Sine/Sine or bust! -Don
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 01:43:28 +0000 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] CC: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [ENTS] Requiem for a red spruce ENTS, Yesterday, Monica, Tanya Blaich (a new musical colleague of Monica's), and yours truly went to the Hopper on Mount Greylock's western slopes. My specific mission was to remeasure the champion red spruce growing in a ravine below a scenic little waterfall. Both the state champion red spruce (on points) and the height champion grow on Mt. Greylock. The point champ is accessible to hikers from the Roaring Brook Trail, but the height champ is off the trail network in the recesses of the Hopper. The weather cooperated and we made it to the spruce location without rain - but once there, no spruce. Our champion is champion no longer. I think the tree went down at least 3 years ago and apparently broke up in its fall into the stream. There are moss-covered chunks in the stream bed, but otherwise no evidence that a flagship specimen of Picea rubens ever proudly stood as the tallest accurately measured red spruce in all New England. This fine tree was known to Lee Frelich and Will Blozan. Although I didn't mention it to Monica, I had vaguely sensed not all was right with the champion and was prepared to be philosophical about it. We Ents live with the awareness that on any trip to visit a favored champion, we may find our champion prostrate, the victim of disease, insect infestation, or a capricious act of nature. So, the demise of the red spruce champ, a somber discovery, did not completely extinguish my desire to share the treasurers of the western slopes of Greylock with my fellow and lady Ents. So, I concentrated on the magic of the Hopper. At 3,487 feet above mean sea level, Mount Greylock is Massachusetts's highest summit and one of only three peaks in Massachusetts to exceed 3,000 feet. The abrupt rise of Mount Greylock stands in contrast to the plateau-like terrain of most of the Berkshires uplands to the east. Greylock is a real mountain, rising prominently above both its eastern and western bases. The steep western slopes of Mount Greylock, where we were headed, rise close to 2,400 feet above drainage of Hopper Brook as it flows out of the Hopper and toward its union with the Green River. The Hopper has been called an old glacial cirque, but not all geologists agree with the interpretation, including darn good amateur geologist Joe Zorzin. I am inclined to agree with the nay-sayers based on the appearance of hundreds of cirque remnants that I have looked seen and thought about. Greylock is a popular destination for hikers, but the Hopper and Money Brook trails aren't yet over-used. The trailhead lies at at altitude of 1,100 feet in an attractive, open meadow and then proceeds eastward. Along the way, the hiker can choose any of four destinations, but our path was to be off trail. Our destination lies between 2,000 and 2,100 feet altitude in an unnamed ravine, along an unnamed stream, at the base of an unnamed waterfall. Is there a pattern here? Gains and losses in elevation along the course gave us an overall elevation gain of about 1,050 feet. Most of the way, the route is easy to moderate in steepness, but the last part is much steeper than to Monica's liking. The loose footing from all the rain didn't help matters in either the easy or difficult parts. Image #1: The path into the Hopper from the trailhead starts by following an old tree-lined road. Sugar maples and American basswoods are plentiful. Yellow and black birch and black cherry also announce their presence. Meadows/fields lie on both sides of the path. Even though the forest corridor hold no trees of special interest, the gestalt is aesthetic. Image #1 shows the path. The direction of view is back toward the trailhead. Some of the larger corridor trees exhibit half forest-grown, half-field grown forms. The younger trees, growing up in the shade of their elders exhibit a more classic forest-grown form. Image #2: There are openings along the path that allow one to view the surrounding peaks and be reminded that a lot of climbing lies ahead. Image #2 is an example. It looks northeastward toward Mt. Prospect, a 2,691-foot pleasingly contoured ridge with a trail to the summit - a worthy goal in its own right. A word or two about Prospect. Image #3: From experience I can attest to a couple of excellent views from Prospect. However, the forest on Prospect is undistinguished second-growth, partly fire successional. Red and and chestnut oaks are the rule near the summit. I've not found any intact old growth on Prospect, but areas that are rapidly approaching old-growth status exist. Turning the camera around, I snapped Image #3 in an attempt to capture an exquisite view of a foreground field set against the main body of the Taconics. On the horizon, the New York-Massachusetts border follows the crest of the Taconics, a mountain range that runs along the border of Connecticut and New York, continues on the border of Massachusetts and New York with 2,798-foot Berlin Mountain being the high point of the Connecticut-Massachusetts-New York section. The Taconics continue into Vermont where they reach their greatest elevations west of Manchester. The hulking form of 3,864-foot Mount Equinox is the highest point of the range. The Taconics peter out south of Rutland, Vermont. The Greylock massif, which we were on, is geologically part of the Taconics, although most people, visitors and locals alike, probably think of Greylock as in the Berkshires. The term Berkshire is more political than geological. U.S. Route 7 crosses the joining point of Greylock to the main body of the Taconics between Williamstown and Pittsfield. Image #4: Most of the Hopper's terrain is steep, often very steep. But there are a few places where one encounters a relatively flat spot and for short stretches can catch the breath. In those idyllic spots, one may linger and enjoy the deep woods feeling that the Hopper offers. Image #4 is just such a spot. The hemlocks are mature, but not old growth. There are plenty of stately trees on Greylock, but few record breakers. When in places like that shown in image #4, I have begun to turn off my measuring gene and just enjoy the woodlands for what they have to offer. Image #5: At the site of the once dominate red spruce, I turned my attention to the surrounding woodland-mountain beauty. Image #5 looks westward through a peephole onto part of the Stony Ledge ridge. In the late autumn, views in this region are spectacular. One gets a big mountain feel when in the Hopper. Image #6: Monica and I noticed that Tanya is able to appreciate woodland aesthetics in the spirit of ENTS. So, invoking my ENTS powers, I did the proper thing and named a tree for her. Tanya's tree is a large white ash that I have measured about a dozen times. It is one of the many trees that I track. The large ash now measures 10.5 feet in girth. The highest twig I could find, peering through the dense canopy, reaches to 117.5 feet above the wide base. Based on my many measurements of Fraxinus americana in Massachusetts, Tanya's tree is one of the patriarchs of its species and the patriarch of that location. It has outlived the once champion basswood a few yards distant. The basswood gave up the ghost about 10 years ago and now stands as a snag. Image #6 shows Tanya and her tree. By appearance, I judge Tanya's tree to be between 225 and 275 years old. Don Bertolette and I once dated a large white ash of similar dimensions and appearance on a side stream to Dunbar Brook in Monroe State Forest. Don's age at coring height was 230 years. Tanya's tree is very similar in appearance, maybe even older by half a century. Image #7: The last photo is of yours truly standing by a large northern red oak growing on the slope close to the unnamed stream. The girth of this beautiful person (not me) is 11.7 feet as measured at breast height. The tree's full height can't be measured this time of year because of the dense canopy, but as I recall, it was about 107 feet a half dozen years ago. It's pretty flat-crowned, but may now be over 110. Well, that's it folks for the brief tour of Mount Greylock's Hopper. Oh yes, I did measure striped maples to girths of 26-inches on a catch as catch can basis. I wasn't specifically searching for them. But Greylock nourishes substantially larger ones, the goal of a future trip to re-connect with that delightful understory tree. My record on Greylock and Massachusetts for striped maple is 40.7 inches in girth. Bob _________________________________________________________________ Get your vacation photos on your phone! http://windowsliveformobile.com/en-us/photos/default.aspx?&OCID=0809TL-HM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
