ENTS,

Yesterday I went for a paddle through a portion of Grand Lake meadows.
A series of channels connects two of the smaller lakes in the area to
Grand Lake, and along the sides of the channels are narrow strips of
forest out in the middle of a fairly large wetland. These strips are
relatively untouched (by logging) I think, and are now part of a
protected area. I'd been out there several times before and had seen a
few big trees so this time I brought my tape with me.

The highlight of the trip was a nice big silver maple that I measured
at 535 cm (211 inch) CBH. It was nice to see one so large that wasn't
open grown. I also saw a couple other large silver maples that were
right at water level along one of the channels. The water is rather
high right now so I didn't get a chance to measure them - I'll go back
again some time. I did, however, measure a nice red oak at 324 cm (128
inch) CBH that was also right along the channel but up high enough
that I had some land to stand on while measuring. I've included some
pics of these, the first one is the first big maple I mentioned. I've
also attached a couple pics of a smaller red oak I found leaning over
into the water. It was pretty cool to be able to paddle into the
canopy.

Here's a website with some info on the area:  http://grandlakemeadows.com

Mike

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