| Deep
Creek |
Jess |
| Sep
24, 2002 19:45 PDT |
My
dad, my roommate, and I spent the last week of August wandering
around
the Deep Creek watershed on the North Carolina side of the
Smokies.
Unfortunately, we didnt cover that much new ground, or see
any new forest
giants. The Deep Creek trail provides easy access to some
beautiful
forest, all of the flats along the creek look like they have at
least been
selectively cut. The uppermost mile plus of the trail passes
through
northern hardwood forest that appears entirely undisturbed by
logging.
Sadly, beech bark disease is now widespread in this forest.
Approximately
half of the beech trees in this area and in the flats lower down
have
already succumbed to the disease.
The flats along the creek probably supported large tuliptrees at
one
time, but selective logging left few trees much over 13 cbh.
The loggers
seemed to ignore the hemlocks; consequently, 10-12 cbh
hemlocks in the
130-140 height range now dominate the area. Scattered
hemlocks exceed
13 cbh and 140 in height, but we didnt see any that
could challenge the
Pole Road Creek Hemlock as largest in the watershed. Below the
first
tributary from the east, Cherry Creek, a major tributary of Deep
Creek,
looks similar to the flats along Deep Creek. A fallen hemlock in
the area
looked to have over three hundred rings, and another nearby
hemlock has at
least half a dozen branches well over a foot in diameter. The
only
hardwood we measured in the area was a 610.5 cbh sourwood.
We spent another day rock hopping along the Left Fork of Deep
Creek. The
stretch of the creek between below Deep Gap and the first
prominent bend
in the stream downstream of the mouth of Keg Drive Branch
resembles Deep
Creek in forest composition, but the trees are slightly smaller.
The bend
in the stream appears to mark the lower edge of cutting. In that
area
grow several tuliptrees 5+ feet in diameter. The tallest known
hardwood
in eastern North America, a 175.5 tuliptree, grows near the
stream, but I
dont know if the tree is in the vicinity of the bend or not.
Rich cove forest occupies a far large proportion of the Nettle
Creek
watershed than of the watersheds of the other tributaries of
Deep Creek.
Both the north facing coves a couple of hundred feet above the
stream and
the flats between 3100 and 3300 have dense herbaceous
layers and
deciduous canopies. Unfortunately, either a major storm or a
selective
logging operation has passed through the area. We didnt see
any cut
stumps or roads in the area, but we did find one rusted, old
pail. Sugar
maple is common in both the flat coves and the gentle slopes
along the
creek, but I cant remember seeing a single individual that
exceeded 18
dbh. White ash were less common and slightly larger, but they
did not
approach the size the area appeared capable of supporting.
Likewise,
basswood and silverbell were major constituents of the canopy,
but were
not large. 12 cbh tuliptrees are abundant, and a few
individuals reach
15 cbh. Rain severely limited our ability to measure heights
that day.
Large trees of other species included a 137 buckeye and a
142 northern
red oak.
Our hike out of the watershed, up to Clingmans Dome Road let us
see some
nice trailside trees. The 146 red spruce Will Blozan measured
a few
years ago along the Fork Ridge Trail still has an intact top.
Sorry, no
updated height. The trail also passes by a 144 cbh hemlock
that grows
on a ridge top. Within site of both the Fork Ridge Trail and
Deep Creek,
is a 205 cbh tuliptree. The trees low fork may have
saved it from
being cut. Farther down Deep Creek, the Deep Creek Trail passes
a 40
cbh mountain-laurel. The most impressive tree within site of the
trail
may be a sourwood on the far side of the creek below the mouth
of Beetree
Creek. The 68.5 sourwood does not branch in the first
50. Both of the
trees forks reach over 100. We roughed out the total
height of the tree
at 111.7.
We also spent another afternoon, until another downpour made us
give up
our hopes of using our rangefinders, wandering around the
headwaters of
Rocky Fork, another tributary of Deep Creek. The western side of
the
stream has an open spruce canopy with and understory of fraser fir
seedlings,
red spruce seedlings, and witch-hobble. The spruce were
consistently
7-8.5 cbh and 110-115 tall. The largest spruce we measured
was 95.5
cbh and 107.3 tall. The slopes farther down stream may be
capable of
supporting larger spruce. A 24 cbh American mountain-ash
in this area
is 56.1 tall. Another mountain-ash at the nearby Fork Ridge
trailhead on
Clingman's Dome Rode is 38.5 cbh and 51.8 tall. These
mountain-ash blow
away all the individuals Ive seen on mountaintops in north
Georgia and
around Highlands, NC, but I havent spent much time at high
elevations in
the Smokies to know the sizes the species is capable of
attaining.
We also spent a little time on the Tennessee side of the park to
look at
the Road Prong Trail. My guess is that the area receives too
little
sunlight to allow spruces to reach large sizes. A cluster of
spruce in
the flat below the mouth of Tomahawk Prong may reach 120, but
spruce in
the area are otherwise small.
Jess Riddle |
|