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From: "Dinomys4" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:41 PM
To: "ENTSTrees" <[email protected]>
Subject: [ENTS] some new older tracts in NJ
28. Sparta Glen - looked like possible OG hemlock to me i though they
looked older than the Tillmann Ravine stuff perhaps; afraid to look
again though as already 6 years ago it was almost all dead and fallen
over, damn HWA!!!!!!!!!! disgusting a beautiful cool dark ravine now
like a bare open dirt field!!
I've located a postcard that shows the Glen circa 1903. The online photo is
a little hard to read but it looks like the forest was already at least 75
years old and perhaps much, much older even back then. I ordered it for a
couple bucks and will see what I see when it arrives.
I saw a circa early 1990's photos and wow did it look beautiful in there.
But between the HWA, the horrible GREAT FLOOD OF 2000, the scout project
that helped stablize it after the flood but also paved a road right along
the river and the salvaging of all the south slope hemlocks and the turning
much of the rest of the south slopes to grass and stone when the rebuilt the
road above it sadly looks nothing AT ALL like it used it! A pretty hideous
mess for at least 1/2 of the way and a mess the last 1/2. If they hadn't
paved the road it may have returned in time, no not sure it will ever quite
go back to what it had been in any form, but the final 1/3-1/2 might look
sort of ok one day again.
But as I mentioned in another message, I drove past on the new top road the
other day and the steep northern slopes still appear to be solidly wooded
with HWs and a few scraggling HWA weakened hemlocks. Hard to say from that
distance and while driving but they looked like they could be pretty old. If
the post-card bares out the slopes likely would have forest (maybe 50
acres??) of at least 185 years of age and perhaps 240 or more?????
ALSO:
I also located a mention of old-growth above the Monksville Reservoir In
Passaic County near Horse Pond Mtn. I'm not terrible sure I trust the source
since it was just some random hike leader mentioning it in a flyer and
sometimes locals call anything 150+ old-growth and some even call anything
better looking than young, very sub-climax as old-growth, but who knows....
ALSO:
some forest patches claimed to be fully climax and at least 120-150 years
old in Warren County, Frelinghuysen Township:
some bits of Jenny Jump Forest, near Presbyterian Camp, along South Town
Road, around Mud Pond, perhaps also along Henford and Kerr Roads.
vague description, it called it alternative, mature, fully climax or
old-growth. my guess is just obvious second-growth but somewhat older than
avg, maybe 150???
ALSO:
for Barry I found some environmentalists in Warren County referring to large
'Button Ball' trees :) along routes 608 and 612 (but somewhat back from the
road). Actually they said they were large "Button Ball or London Plain". My
guess is they are not really London Plain but Sycamore, but who knows.
London Plain did get planted here and there in NJ.
ALSO:
for NY just across the border, Mineral Spring Falls old-growth hemlock
forest in Black Rock Forest
ALSO:
for catskills first mile through Mink Hollow near Spruceton Road
ALSO:
for the Abraham Hewitt ravine tracts (in 1895 said to contain never touched
virgin forest). I found that the state did not buy land in the area for the
forest until starting in 1951! One the one hand I'm not sure the state
logged too much in the northern part of the state after that date OTOH that
gave 55 years for private owners to clear it out. But since it is just a
skinny ravine below burned over, heavily logged upper areas and is tricky to
get to and log unless coming around through the north maybe it was left
partly untouched?? One state description mentions largely untouched
forests, but makes it unclear whether they mean by trails/roads/park
development or by logging.
