Hemlock & Birch Trail white pines   djluth-@pennswoods.net
  Sep 22, 2006 16:27 PDT 

ENTS,

In an attempt to continue to clean up my backlog of data, I've come across some
recent updates on various tree data in the vicinity of the following landmarks
at Cook Forest:

Hemlock Trail, RT36, Forest Road, Birch Trail, Tom's Run

The hemlock forest between Forest Road, RT36, and Hemlock Trail is one of the
finest we have in the park. One of our 140ft class hemlocks is located here.
Some nice white pines can be seen as you progress farther down the slope and
cross Forest Road working towards Tom's Run.

I've finally been able to "clean up" this section of woods that I've been trying
to survey for tall white pine/hemlock now for years. There is still one more
section I need to check on the south side of RT36 as you progress to Mohawk
Trail. I don't think that'll happen before the Forest Summit, but we have been
able to add a few more trees to our "significant" pine list.

Pines that I've deemed "significant" for Cook Forest, are those that break the
140ft class ie: if they break 140, than they get a GPS coordinate. If they
break 150, besides getting a GPS point, Bob & I do a little jig and celebrate.
Oh yes, can't forget this either... any new pine over 150ft rates a coveted Ents
yell. Seriously though, 130's are quite numerous here as are 140's, but when
you get into the 150's you're really getting into an elite club for
Pennsylvania. Here's the current break down of Cook Forest's white pine height
classes:

Height Class   # pines

140            146
150            77
160            25
170            3
180            1

This is way above any other surveyed site in Pennsylvania:

Hearts Content
Height Class   # pines
140            10
150            14
160            2

Anders Run
Height Class   # pines
140            10
150            7
160            1

Ricketts Glen
Height Class   # pines
140            1

Spencer Estate
Height Class   # pines
140            1

All other sites surveyed did not even have one pine that made it to the 140ft
class. Other well known PA sites not mentioned above include:

Alan Seeger N.A - 130ft class pines
Detweiler Run N.A. - 130ft class pines

The following well known sites did not have any pines that broke the 130ft
class:

Tall Timbers N.A.
Snyder-Middleswarth N.A.
Detweiler Run N.A.
Tionesta Scenic & Research N.A.
Johnson Run N.A.
Lower Jerry Run N.A.
Bear Meadows N.A.

These aren't even all the sites we've surveyed, just some of the ones that many
folks are aware of.

Cook Forest is definitely THE place to come to see tall pines when you're in PA.

Stats from the latest surveys conducted on 7/20/06 and 8/2/06 follows:

Species          CBH   Height   Comments

E. hemlock       10.7 111.8
E. hemlock       9     125
E. hemlock       8.3   128.7
E. hemlock       9.3   129.4
E. hemlock       10.3 129.7
E. hemlock       8.5   130.5
E. hemlock       8.2   133.4
red maple        N/A   109.6
white pine       N/A   128.8
white pine       8.9   138
white pine       10.5 139.7
white pine       10.2 139.8
white pine       8.8   140.2
white pine       8.7   141.5
white pine       8.9   143
white pine       7.5   145.4
white pine       7.2   145.5
white pine       9     146.3
white pine       8.3   148.8
white pine       9     151.1


Dale
RE: Hemlock & Birch Trail white pines   djluth-@pennswoods.net
  Sep 24, 2006 21:17 PDT 

Will,

Those are the number of trees falling within the height class ie: 146 pines in
the 140ft class, 77 pines in the 150ft class, etc.

Dale
 
Dale,

Excellent work! Are the class rankings cumulative or only # of trees falling
within the height class?

Will Blozan