| Cardigan
Mt / Welton Falls St Park, NH |
Raymond
Caron |
| Sep
14, 2005 19:11 PDT |
Last Sunday as part of AMC Trail Work Weekend the writer visited
Welton
Falls State Forest via the Lower Manning Hiking Trail from AMC
Cardigan
Lodge located in Cardigan Mt State Park. The writer observe red
large
numbers of good sized hemlock, white pine, and red maple along
the
trail. The trees got bigger the closer I got to Welton Falls. I
observed many tall pines standing out way above the forest
canopy from a
vantage point provided from stream terrace that jutted out over
the
falls. A very pleasant prospect. The large trees appeared to be
concentrated primarily in a fertile stream terrace environment
in a
ravine that shelters the trees from winter winds. The valley is
bottlenecked by Welton Falls such that it would prevent loggers
from
harvesting from downriver and is also difficult to get to from
upriver.
The site is at approx. 1000' elevation and is west of the 3000'
ridge of
Cardigan so it is protected from winds from west and north.
Photographs
of the area indicate it was farmed and grazed in 1800's. The
trees I
saw didn't have much in way of side branches so it appears they
are not
old field pines so I'm not sure why they stand so tall compared
to
neighboring trees. I plan to re-visit area when the snow flies
so I can
bushwhack up the valley of Davis Brook and check out the rest of
the
stream terrace or delta deposits. There are no trails that go up
the
valley. Whatever caused the falls to develop also caused glacial
till
to collect upstream of the falls as well. Davis and Fowler have down cut
through the glacial deposits to form the stream terrace.
Ray Caron
Waltham MA |
|