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ENTS & WNTS,
Today Monica and I were taken by friends Faye Schrater and Dick
White to Kennebec Pass in the La Platas. The trip was
fantastic. We made it up above the pass to an altitude of
11,956 feet on what I presume is an old mining road. To get to the
pass, Faye drove us up La Plata Canyon - a scenic wonder. I can't
begin to do justice to what we saw. Maybe the attached images will
tell a little of the story.
I'll try to construct an email in a few days that will better convey
the grandeur of this country. But at this point my head is still
reeling from the alpine high I'm on, and I do mean high. We reached
just under 12,000 feet altitude and the surrounding peaks rose to
nearly 13,000.
The last image tells the big tree tale. It is the NEW high altitude
tall tree champion. It grows right at two miles above sea level. Its
roots are a little below and its crown is well above 10,560 feet. It
is an Englemann spruce and it is 9.5 feet in girth (36.3 inches).
Its height is a solid 137.0 feet! It is an extraordinary tree. It
beats the Coal Bank Pass spruce by 6.5 feet. I got excellent
agreement between the Nikon Forestry 550 and the TruPulse 200. I
measured and remeasured the spruce. It could be slightly taller, but
137.0 is sound. The spruce was not an isolated tall tree. Farther
down the ridge, I measured another Englemann to 130.5 feet, the same
as the Coal Bank Pass tree. The 130.5-footer grows at about 10,000
feet.
Here is another first. At 11,180 feet, I measured an Englemann
to 118.0 feet in height and 8.6 feet in girth. The bloody place is
amazing. I'll tell more of the story in another email. I just wanted
to share the big news now.
Tomorrow it is off to the Piedra River old growth with a Forest
Service representative. Who knows what tomorrows story will be.
Bob
Continued
at:
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/cea0bcd4516dc5a5?hl=en
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