| McConnells
Mill State Park, PA (Updates) |
Anthony
Kelly |
|
Apr
04, 2007 15:25 PDT |
Ents,
This past Sunday 4/1/07. I made a visit to McConnells Mill State
Park
(Portersville, PA). The park's main geographic feature is the
long,
steep-sided Slippery Rock Creek Gorge. It was the first
measuring trip I'd
made to the area in about nine months.
Previous trips to the site and many, many hours of measuring
yielded a
Rucker Index of 130.85 and four PA state height champions, three
of which
are also Northeast champs . This past trip's work boosted the
Rucker index
to 131.51 and revealed yet another PA height champ.
Updated Slippery Rock Creek Gorge Rucker Index: 131.51
Species
CBH
Height Status
tulip tree
10.8' 146.8'*
white ash
6.6' 137.7'
sycamore
9.0'
137.5'
bitternut hickory 5.8'
132.7'
cucumber tree 10.2' 131.6' tallest
in NE
slippery elm
9.0'
128.5'* tallest
in NE
sugar maple N/A
127.3'** tallest
in PA
Am. Basswood 6.4'
127.1'
tallest in NE
N. red oak
9.6'
123.1'
E. hemlock
N/A
122.8'
(The single asterisks mark new measurements of trees already on
the list.
The double asterisks mark a new tree on the list.)
The tall tulip has apparently grown ~0.8 ft since I last
measured it about a
year ago. I had measured the Slippery Elm at 127.0ft last
summer. That was
through thick leave cover. I had suspected then that I hadn't
found the
top-most branch.
The new tree on the list is the 127.3ft sugar maple. It replaces
another
sugar maple that measured 123.0ft. This new one is now the
tallest known
example of its species in PA.
I can't take credit for discovering this tree, however. Though
I'd walked
past it dozens of times on a number of trips never paying close
attention to
it. (It's deceptively skinny.) Dale noticed it on a trip that
he, Carl, Ed
and I made to McConnells Mill on June 7, 2006. He got
straight-up laser
shot measurements of 123ft and suspected that it might be a new
PA height
champ. We tried, but were unable to get a good double sine
measurement then
due to heavy leaf cover. I made other attempts to measure the
tree on a
subsequent trip last summer without success. This past Sunday
there were no
leaves, of course, so a good shot at the top was not difficult.
So credit goes to the experienced eye of Dale for this one. I
may have
never bothered to measure this tree. Bravo, Dale. I'm going to
be paying
closer attention to skinny trees from now on.
All totaled with the new sugar maple McConnells Mill State Park
contains
five PA height champs (so far), three of which are also
Northeast height
champs:
Am. basswood 6.4'
127.1'
tallest in NE
black gum
6.3' 110.6' tallest
in PA
cucumber tree 10.2'
131.6'
tallest in NE
slippery elm
9.0'
128.5' tallest
in NE
sugar maple N/A
127.3' tallest
in PA
Scott, you haven't found a bigger black gum, recently, have you?
Oh, there's one more notable tree that I re-measured on this
trip. It's a
hefty cucumber tree that Ed and Carl and I discovered on our
trip to the
park in Jan 2006:
cucumber tree 11.7' 124.5'
Anthony Kelly
|
| RE:
McConnells Mill State Park, PA (Updates) |
Dale
Luthringer |
| Apr
04, 2007 19:25 PDT |
Tony,
Great work! You guys have really found some beauties in there.
With
such a huge site, steep ravines, side fingers and flat bottoms,
who
knows what else can be hiding in there.
Ed says there's a new record beech in there, I say there's a 150
footer
tulip in there. That's easy to say with us two armchair bandits
up here
coaching you on.
You've really put McConnells Mill State Park on the map. What a
gem.
Dale
|
| RE:
McConnell's Mill State Park, PA (Updates) |
Anthony
Kelly |
| Apr
05, 2007 09:52 PDT |
Dale, Ed,
I think that a 150' tulip at McConnells Mill (or somewhere else
in the
Slippery Rock Creek Gorge) is not out of the question
considering that I've
aleady found a number of them in the 140's, but I'm not counting
on finding
one. Though there is still much of the gorge that I haven't
explored,
including a few smaller tributary ravines like the one that
contains the
146.8' Tulip, I'm getting the idea that I've already found most
of the
sweetest spots.
The last couple of new areas (mostly ravines) that I had big
hopes for,
turned out to have smaller trees than I'd hoped. Who know's what
some of
the remaining areas might produce, though? I vacillate between
optimism and
pessimism.
I still have a lot of the steeper, more difficult-to-get-to
areas of the
main gorge itself to explore. The areas like this that I have
been to tend
to have old, but usually not big trees, since the ones on
steeper slopes
tend to fall over after they get so big. However, here and there
I'll come
across benches or little flat spots near the river that contain
a couple
bigger trees. Hopefully, I'll eventually find some humungous in
one of
those places.
I look for most of the future gains in the Rucker index to come
from
measuring overlooked trees in the area that I've already been
to. I still
haven't measured that many hemlocks or Red Oaks in Walnut Flats.
I think
I'll find some taller ones that the ones currently on the list
(Red Oak -
123.1, Hemlock - 122.8)
Ed, as for a champion beech, it would have to top the 127 footer
at Cook
Forest. Until now, after a lot of searching the talllest beech
that I've
been able to come up with is about 122ft (if I remember
correctly). We'll
see. Much work to be done. Let me know when you want to go back
there.
Tony
|
| RE:
McConnells Mill State Park, PA (Updates) |
Anthony
Kelly |
| Apr
05, 2007 13:25 PDT |
Bob,
It really had been a while since I was last able to get up to
McConnells
Mill. I'll be making a few more trips in the coming weeks,
hopefully with
Tom Diggins at some point. I'll try to remeasure some of the
other trees in
the Rucker index. It's been about a year already since I last
measured many
of them. Hopefully, more exploration will yield a few more new
finds, too.
Anthony Kelly
| |
From:
Robert Leverett <dbhg-@comcast.net>;
Anthony,
Outstanding job. We were all
hoping that you'd make it back to
McConnell Mill and update the numbers. Great places
can't be visited too
often.
Bob |
|
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