Originally posted by Dick
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What section of the Adirondacks has the oldest growth forest?
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Years ago I would spend time hiking in a very large stand of extremely impressive old growth white pines off the Oswegatchie canoe carry trail, west of Lows Lake. All but a very few lost their lives in the '95 microburst. Those that remain don't compare in any way to what once was. Just one notable exception, "the old man" still stands, but he lost a good portion of his top growth. It was thought he could be a contender for the most massive in the state, but although close, he didn't quite make it. Somewhere around the top 3 to 5 I believe was the estimate."Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman
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Originally posted by Dick View PostNo "ring around the rosie"...just a few hippie tree-huggers...
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The solution to junk mail is to take the few moments to call each place and request that they stop sending it. I was at 5-6 pieces of junk mail per day a few months ago. I'm now at 0-1 per day maximum.
Regarding the original topic, I think that DSettahr is correct. While we mostly think of old growth as the tall, towering pines, don't forget that the summit conditions are so harsh year-round that a small, 3 foot tree may easily be 100 or more years old. I'd be willing to bet that most of the old growth is on the upper slopes.High peaks: Summer: 46/46 (1st iteration); 29/46 (2nd); 11/46 (3rd); 7/46 (4th) Winter: 7/46 (1st); 1/46 (2nd)
The other 56: Summer: 55/56 (1st); 12/56 (2nd); 4/56 (3rd); 3/56 (4th) Winter: 13/56 (1st); 3/56 (2nd); 1/56 (3rd); 4th (0/56)
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Originally posted by TBPDPTI View PostThe solution to junk mail is to take the few moments to call each place and request that they stop sending it. I was at 5-6 pieces of junk mail per day a few months ago. I'm now at 0-1 per day maximum.
Regarding the original topic, I think that DSettahr is correct. While we mostly think of old growth as the tall, towering pines, don't forget that the summit conditions are so harsh year-round that a small, 3 foot tree may easily be 100 or more years old. I'd be willing to bet that most of the old growth is on the upper slopes.
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there's a lot of really big old black cherry trees along and around the npt, especially from spuce lake through durant."Ahh! The old fishing hole... so peaceful and relaxing. Doesn't even matter if I catch a single fish -- ah! Come on you stupid fish, take the bait! Don't make me come down there!" -Homer Simpson
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Originally posted by adk View PostI am curious as to which areas you would say have the most "Old Growth" stands. I spend most of my time in Franklin County and there is some nice old growth, but in patches. What region would you say has the largest section of Old Growth forest that was never logged?
Some other areas with big chunks I believe are the West Canada Lakes Wilderness (second largest?) and then the Pigeon Lakes Wilderness and the area that gets wrapped around by the West Branch Sacandaga probably tie for third largest chunks.
There is also quite a bit in the Powley-Piesco Road area.
The Sacandaga and Powley chunks have not as much pine although the Powely still has lots of spruce. Powley has tons of giant Yellow Birch.
The Saranac Lakes Wild Area and St. Regis Canoe area also have lots of chunks of old-growth.
After that the chunks are smaller, but there are bunches all over. Like the hike to Ampersand Mountain goes through a nice chunk. And of course there is the famous Pine Orchard in the southern Adirondacks. And even a few parts directly east of the road on the east shore of even Schroon Lake are more or less old-growth (although they did have the White Pines and Red Spruce logged out, however, those areas near the east shore road don't appear as if they had tons of those anyway so it's probably not so much changed and there is even the rare giant pine still there too, a few of the bits deeper into the Pharoah Lakes area there even have chunks of giant pines intact, mixed among many logged and burned over chunks, a real mix there of lots of logged over, lots of burned over, and lots of softwood cut OG, and lots of pure OG). Some of the mountains northwest of Lake Placid actually some chunks of old-growth. Hoffman Notch Wilderness has a nice chunk of old-growth with maybe the most gigantic Yellow Birch anywhere.
There are some sections of old trees right along parts of southeast shore of
Lake George and of course the little Pack Forest to the west.
There are a bunch of bits of chunks here and there in the Siamese Ponds Wilderness.
A big chunk of the Ausable Club property is old-growth and there are various bits in the high peaks. In fact, one of the trails turns into old-growth not that far from Heart Lake in the High Peaks. Giant Mountain just to the east of the High Peaks has some chunks of OG. The Paul Smiths pine stand and so on and so forth.
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Basically the only three places with any half-way sizeable bits of old-growth left in the East are the Adirondacks, The Great Smoky Mountains and the Porcupine Mountains. Although other places like the Linville Gorge and Congaree are decent sized chunks.
It's a good thing they started buying up the Adirondacks for preservation so early and came up with the whole forever wild thing. It would've been a total cut over mess otherwise. As it was, a lot got sold and logged and re-purchased through various scams and such, as much OG is left in the Adirondacks was lost to scams and so forth during the early years of park creation. But some was purchased before any logging had been done and lots before any hardwood logging had begun and some of that survived all the goings on during park creation.
Some more was lost after the 1950 hurricane when they held illegal salvage logging. The loggers knew exactly where the good stuff was and mostly asked to be able to log in old-growth areas only, in some cases cutting stands clear that had barely even a tree blown over. Luckily so much got blown and the mad dash to cut went so wild there was a sudden timber glut and quite a few salvage claims were given up and abandoned before the damage was too catastrophic.
In some ways the Adirondacks, as cut as they have been in many areas, are still almost in better shape than many areas out west were even the public lands received devastating degrees of cutting, especially in the 1950s-1980s era when the chance to still save a ton of it was lost. And ever since they've been fighting to still log the last scraps left. Standing on many peaks out west it's all bare a messy view in every direction. They keep a lot of ribbons of trees along major roads to make it look better, but that is just a smokescreen.
Anyway they are an incredible wonder. The entire Northeast would've had nothing but scattered little scarps of a few acres here and there and I don't think anything over 5,000 acres and barely anything over 200 acres, mostly just widely scattered bits of a 2-10 acres, had it not been for the Adirondacks forever wild.
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Originally posted by DuctTape View PostI didn't see anyone mention the old growth stand in the Ferris Lake Wild Forest. That one is on my 2011 summer list to visit.
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Originally posted by DSettahr View PostFor example, the old growth forest at Paul Smith's was downhill from the road. It was never harvested because value of the trees didn't cover the cost of hauling the big trees uphill to the road.
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While hunting I came across a real giant in the Minerva area. Had to stand there and marvel at it for a few minutes. Biggest Pine tree I ever saw.
"You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns" Thoreau
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