I recently returned from a 10 day trip to the Northeast and the trip was bookended by quite a contrast. My first full day was spent exploring Midtown Manhattan, and my last 3 days were spent within the Five Ponds Wilderness in the Adirondacks - from one extreme to the other. I had to finally see the former, but I much prefer the latter.
Despite all the great sites and trees visited during the trip, my favorite parts by far were the great times shared with NTS folks - Bob, Monica, Erik, Ray, and Jared. Getting a tour of Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan (thanks again Erik!) and the great times, great trees (and great ice cream!) in Massachusetts are memories that I'll carry for a very long time.
I tend to keep my schedule pretty loose when on trips, and although I had originally planned to visit eastern Massachusetts towards the tail end of the trip, the lure of the Adirondacks proved to be too much and I headed Northwest upon leaving western Massachusetts.
Much can be said about the forest types within Five Ponds, but the things that stood out the most to me were:
- Old growth is extensive and is scattered throughout. There was definitely some logging, but extensive logging was not done for all forest types.
- There was extensive damage from the 1995 derecho. In one case I found a very seldomly used trail (no longer on the official maps, yet still marked) and for a couple miles the forest was mostly blowdown with regrowth.
- I didn't see any oaks. Upon looking at a range map, I see that I was in the blank spot on the range map for northern red oak.
- Without attempting to separately list the species associated with each forest type, overall the species that I noticed the most were yellow birch, balsam fir, red maple, sugar maple, red spruce, eastern hemlock, black cherry, white pine, and American beech. Ten or so other species were observed, but didn’t seem as prevalent as the ones mentioned. Some of the others that I really enjoyed seeing were tamarack, striped maple, bigtooth aspen, and northern white cedar.
The tallest tree measured was a 10.34’ x 151.8’ white pine deep within the wilderness. It’s in a very remote spot and is about an 18 mile round trip hike based on the commonly used trail. The “shortcut” trail that I found through blowdown cuts it down to about a 14 mile round trip.
At first sight the tree looks taller than it is, and would have been taller in it’s prime since it has a dead top. It has the 4 main factors for superlative height that I often see (sufficient age, shelter, deep soil, and water access). The tree is so ideally positioned at the bottom of a curved hill that it makes me wonder if this is a case of a perfect storm for white pine tree height at this site.
There are a lot of white pines in the 120's and a good number in the 130's, but moving up into the 140's and beyond will probably be few and far between at the site. That being said, I was extremely impressed with how well white pine does at this latitude, which was above the 44th parallel.
Photos and video of the 10.34' x 151.8' white pine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izVGl2XVfNE
A beaver wasn't happy with my presence (sound recommended):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emNwKseF06w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emNwKseF06w
Other scenes:
