ENTS- Over the holidays, I spent a week exploring in the Smokies, and I thought I might share some of my findings with you. The most rewarding day for finding ancient trees was spent crosscountry (off- trail) in the Forge Creek drainage, near Cades Cove. I will post some images if someone will enlighten me on how to reduce my 800mb images to 400mb or smaller so I can send them.
Up the Forge Creek trail about a mile, you come to the obvious beginning of virgin forest (I use the term to mean never-logged, regardless of age of trees or fire history), where you pass through flanking old white oaks like a gate into the wonderland of big trees. To the left of the trail is a 15'cbh chestnut snag that must be at least 50' tall, with hollows where limbs were, and a rapid taper. Seems all chestnuts were that way, from the logs and snags I've seen, and this one's the largest of any I've seen in more than 30 years of exploring. The tuliptrees ahead are much more impressive than I think the chestnuts could have been. The first ones are just ahead. The largest here I measured at 18'cbh a few years ago...it's just upslope from the trail, and it's hollow. There are a few big hemlocks here, all dead, with limbs starting to fall. The largest of them is between 3 and 4'dbh, like almost everywhere else. Any bigger than that is extremely rare. I've never seen one as big as 5', though I know they are out there. There are a few smaller still-living ones, no doubt saved by the efforts of those who care. I was saddened to see that some of the big ones farther up the trail had been treated (Will, I'm sure you can tell us the details), as there were paint spots at the bases, but all were dead. Just across the creek is the confluence of Licklog Branch. Disappointment at first...no big trees along the creek or on the slopes above for a long way. There has been a lot of hot fire in the Cades Cove area in the not-so-distant past, leaving slopes like the south-facing one here devoid of old trees, and with sterile soil. Yellow pines here have been wiped out recently by pine bark beetles, leaving a few, scattered small chestnut oaks. Even the north-facing slope is younger, hemlock forest...yes, mostly dead. A few cling to life still, and fewer still seem to have some resistance to the adelgids, but always the smaller ones. As always under hemlock and often elsewhere, is a tangle of Rhododendron maximum, scourge of the crosscountry explorer. Many curses!! Things change beyond. I crawled up out of the damn rhodo into clear, open forest. Where the valley turns southward, I started up Molly's Butt. Yep, that's what it's called. Up one side and down the other I went. The west-facing side of the ridge is chestnut oak-dominated. Many look to be 200-300 years old, 30-36"dbh, with a few old tuliptrees as large. They don't get very big on these hot slopes. There's an understory of huckleberry. Then things started getting good. On the east-facing slope above, the understory of Kalmia opens up into a steep little cove, just below the ridge, where the first giants live. There's a hollow tuliptree 17'cbh that you can go inside, surrounded by some lesser but still impressive and very old cohorts. I love to examine the crowns of old tuliptrees...every one a unique sculpture of stout, shapely limbs, hollows, and neat details. A short distance up the ridge, in high coves at the foot of Molly's Butt, lies a paradise of clear, open ground on lush soil (probably full of spring wildflowers like Trilliums) which nurtures huge tuliptrees, northern red oaks, and black cherries. I was having a photographic frenzy while trying to measure some of the biggies and leave time to get back down before dark. The guardian of the grove was another 17' tuliptree. One about as large had recently fallen by the trunks of 2 more giants, creating a spectacle of the megaflora. Several are over 5'dbh, many over 3'. A few oaks are around 4', and a coulpe cherries nearly 4'. No hemlocks to grieve over. There's more spectacular forest on this north side of Molly's Butt than I had time to see, but there was more on the way down. Even the south-facing slope leading down to Ekaneetlee Branch has some large tuliptrees in coves. Where I met the creek, there are giants upstream, ones to see some other time. There are hemlocks along it, and on the north slope, but few, and none very large. The rhodo isn't as thick here, either, and there is clear ground above. A fallen 5' thick tuliptree log spans the creek, making for an amazing footlog and vantage point for viewing standing trees as large and larger nearby. Far upslope, I measured the largest of the day at 19', an open-sided tulip with charcoal on the exposed heartwood of the uphill side. There is a lot of fire scarring on the larger trees in the Cades Cove area (and in Joyce Kilmer and plenty of other places, incidentally). This one stands in an open grove that extends up to the ridge top and probably to the gentler slopes surrounding. But it was getting dark. Down into the rhodo again to cross the creek. Helluva challenge but I gotta do it while I can and before the fallen hemlocks make it even more challenging. I guess there will be lots of good footlogs coming, though. Can't wait to get back. Dan Miles
