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ENTS,
My great friends Will Blozan and Lee
Frelich rolled in yesterday and are staying with Monica and me.
Tonight Dave Stahle and Ehrhard Frost will arrive and John Davis on
Friday. Ordinarily this would be a time of great rejoicing, but I'm
going to be forced to sit out the forest conference and ENTS
rendezvous. ..(because of illness.)
Bob
October 21, 2007
ENTS,
From what I learned around 10:00PM last evening when Will, Lee, Ehrhard, and Monica returned from Charlemont, the climb of Saheda and Monica's concert went splendidly. The prior night's crew staying at the house included Dave Stahle, but he had to leave for Arkansas after the concert. That left Will, Lee, and Ehrhard to babysit me, giving Monica a second night's break. Tonight Will has the unenviable job of babysitting me himself. Lucky Will.
Well, according to all, the day had been perfect and Will flawlessly completed
the climb in his usual highly professional, mission-driven way. He recorded a film to show me of views on the way up and from the top of Saheda. The great tree has a complex crown structure. It has a double top. It splits into two trunks at 115 feet. An accurate height determination of Saheda has alluded me . So Will agreed to climb Saheda a second time. He climbed it originally in November 1998, when we recorded the tree's height at 158.3 feet. Seven growing seasons later I was still unsure of its height gain. I've measured the tree many times and get numbers between 162 and 165 feet, with the latter giving the tree every benefit of the doubt. Well, doubt reigns no more. Saheda is 163.4 feet tall or 1.8 feet shorter than I had it. However, my previous reticle modeling gave the tree 618 cubes. Will's new modeling gives the tree 693 cubes. That's an impressive increase. Not being able to see into the crown of the tree well enough obviously leads to sizable errors even using the Macroscope.
On Thursday Will had climbed the Tuntkashala Hemlock and modeled it to 699 cubes. I'm sure he'll give us more details.
Bob
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TOPIC: 2007 Forest Summit
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/e3918ffb4148cbbc?hl=en
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== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Wed, Oct 24 2007 10:59 am
From: "Lee E. Frelich"
ENTS:
Tuesday afternoon I arrived back in MN to howling winds of 40 mph, a
stark
contrast to the calmness of Massachusetts. About 350 e-mails await
my
response (I will get through these by deleting any from the Dean's
office
immediately, and then taking a vacation to ponder the others). Its
amazing
how many life and death situations, that apparently only I can
solve, my
students get into anytime I am out of town.
Anyway, this year's summit was great except that we had to leave Bob
Leverett at home to nurse his illnesses. Most people pretended that
Bob was
with us throughout the day, we often talked about what he would have
said
had he been there, and we had fun reporting the day's activities to
him
when we arrived back at his house each evening.
Thanks to Gary for hosting the meeting events, to Bob and Monica for
hosting me and several other visitors, to Monica for planning and
presenting the ENTS concert at Charlemont Inn, and to everyone who
attended.
In addition to the lecture series, other highlights included the
discovery
of a huge black cherry and measurement of the giant hemlock at Abby
Pond,
as well as Will's climb of the Saheda Pine. The hike up Todd-Clark
Mountain
in old growth yellow birch, black birch, sugar maple, and white ash
forest
was fun, although rather strenuous because the mountain continues to
add to
its height and steepness as I get older.
Have a speedy recovery, Bob--the giant black cherry awaits your
visit.
Lee
== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Wed, Oct 24 2007 10:34 am
From: dbhguru@
Lee,
Thanks. It was great to have you here even given my medical
situation. BTW, I had the catheter removed this morning, but cannot
pass urine. So guess what? Yep, it's back to the hospital for
reinsertion of the catheter. Oh joy!
I'm looking forward to getting to see that black cherry. I believe
its combination of significant height and girth may make it the new
state champ.
My eternal gratitude goes out to Gary. He carried the full load. Of
course I had little doubt that he would, but the gratitude is there
in spades.
Bob
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