Clark Ridge, MTSF:  John Eichholz Strikes   Robert Leverett
  Apr 10, 2006 07:58 PDT 

ENTS,

    Well, our Tree Amigo buddy John Eichholz struck pay dirt on Clark
Ridge in MTSF this past weekend. He topped my height record for American
beech for New England by 0.5 feet. John found a beech at 130.5 feet in
height and 8.4 feet in circumference. The previous record, which had
stood for a long time, was 130.0 ft tall and 7.8 girth. Way to go,
John! You da man! John's find adds 0.05 to MTSF's Rucker index to bring
it to a robust 135.42. I am now guardedly optimistic that we just might
be able to bring MTSF's Rucker index up to 136.0 by seasons end. Dare I
hope? Before John's confirmation, I placed the likelihood of that at
near zero, because adding 6 feet to the total tree-foot total is a very
tall order. Can we do it? Only time and a lot of effort will tell. It
seems reasonable to think that we might be able to add a tenth of a
point from the sugar maple species. If the Jake Swamp tree makes it to
168 feet by season's end, it will add 0.07 of a point to the Rucker. As
for other species, there has to be a 130-foot bitternut hickory
somewhere. I would think we could add a tenth of a point via black
cherry, and so on.

    Also, John confirmed a new 140-foot class white ash on Clark Ridge.
John's tree is 141.53 feet tall and 5.5 feet around - a bean pole.
However, it is a legitimate 140 and becomes the 17th white ash to be
confirmed at over 140 feet in height in MTSF. I seriously doubt that
Mohawk will always hold this record for the entire Northeast, but
strictly from a practical standpoint, it would be hard for another
Northeastern site to surpass Mohawk without a monumental measuring
effort.

    John also confirmed a 102-foot white birch. The birch is quite a
find. It's harder to break 100 feet on a white birch than it is for the
yellow birch, but John did it. To use one of our in phrases, John
Eichholzed that sucker! (For the benefit of newcomers, an intensive,
superlative measuring exercise is called an "Eichholzing".) So, it's
permissible to use expressions like "By Jove, I Eichholzed that baby!"
The philosophical/metaphysical/wacky question of the day for Pamela
Briggs is "Do you think some trees like to be Eichholzed while others
loathed to be measured precisely, or do you think the whole lot just
doesn't give a fig?"

 ...


Robert T. Leverett
Cofounder, Eastern Native Tree Society
Clark ridge:  Revisiting the Ash Queen   John Eichholz
  Apr 25, 2006 19:10 PDT 
ENTS:

I realize I have a number of backlogged trip reports. I am going to
work my way backward, starting with today. I tried to revisit Indian
flats and Ash flats at Mohawk trail State Forest, but due to the heavy
rains we had last weekend, I found it unworkable to attempt the river
crossing. My fallback plan was Zoar/Clark ridge, with the goal of
recovering the new 133' sugar maple and seeing what else is up that way.
The general area is near the Ash Queen, the former height champ and a
grand old ash tree. Bob, John Knuerr and I remeasured it to 147.9'h,
9.4'cbh on April 15, so it still is putting on height even with spots of
crown loss.

The sugar maple I was looking for turned up slightly below and
downstream of the Ash Queen. It is also above a large, tall American
beech tree. Near it is another tall sugar maple, the third over 130' in
this area. Above the Ash Queen are a scattering of ash trees that are
quite tall, with two above 140'. I continued traveling across slope at
this high elevation, and eventually looked down on a very rich sugar
maple grove, and farther on a concentration of young ash trees in the
mid 120' range. On this ridge, sugar maples and white ash form
alternating clusters and bands, which are striking at this time of year
with the green young foliage of the maple and the still-gray crowns of
the ash. Dropping down from there I found myself heading for the flat
areas at the base of this boulder field, which are directly above the
Zoar Gap. Mid slope I found an American basswood that appears to set
the state height record at 126.9'. Farther down in the flat area is a
white ash that appears to have grown since it was last measured, and is
now 143.5'h.

Finally, in the stream channel leading to the Deerfield River, I roughed
out a well known Northern red oak to 129.5', which I believe has been a
tricky reading to make. A careful remeasure will have to wait, though.

The bizarre tree id column is something we have been talking about
off-list. It is basically a unique id number for the tree, to keep
track of it in the database.

Tree id          Species                   Height      CBH

3090032020 American Beech           125.2      7.8
3090032040 American Basswood      117.9      4.9
3090032053 American Basswood      126.9      5.5
3090032054 Bitternut Hickory           118.7      4.4
3090032052 Northern Red Oak         116.3      6.3
3090032046 Sugar Maple                 107.0      Nt
3090032050 Sugar Maple                 126.4      Nt
3090032041 Sugar Maple                 130.8      7.9
3090032023 Sugar Maple                 133.0      7.6
3090032051 White Ash                     129.9      Nt
3090032047 White Ash                     130.5      Nt
3090032049 White Ash                     134.4      5.9
3090032045 White Ash                     134.6     10.2
3090032048 White Ash                     135.8      7.7
3090032043 White Ash                     137.3      7.4
3090032042 White Ash                     140.7      7.2
3090032055 White Ash                     143.5      7.5
3090032025 White Ash                     147.4      9.4

John Eichholz
RE: Revisiting the Ash Queen   Robert Leverett
  Apr 26, 2006 05:16 PDT 

John,

Way to go, my friend. Man, I now owe you two breakfasts. A new
American basswood record. That is truly exciting. But, you wiley rascal
you, you're shooting down all my old records, one by one. Soon, I'll
just have to be put out to pasture. Just joking. Wow, how exciting! MTSF
has a few surprises left.

BTW, I don't have a 143.5-foot WA on Clark Ridge North at a 7.5-foot
circumference. It may be the lost 140. Anyway, it will go into the
database. The number of 140-foot white ash trees in MTSF now stands at
20. That is just way, way cool. With the 126.9-foot A. basswood,
Mohawk's Rucker is 135.9. That cool Rucker party draws closer.

Bob
RE: Revisiting the Ash Queen   John Eichholz
  Apr 26, 2006 14:07 PDT 
Bob,

Sorry about the records. Hey, I might have I rediscovered the lost
Bigtooth Aspen today, or at least a passable replacement. I Went back
to the scene of the crime and remeasured that red oak. Try as I might I
could not exceed 129.1'h and 7.0'cbh. The bigtooth aspen were right
there, so I just had to explore their potential. Anyway the first
measurement I took was 124.1' (on the lowest tree at the upstream extend
of the stand), so I knew I was on to something. Careful remeasurement
with the aid of a reflector at 4.5'h, yielded a repeatable maximum
height of 126.0', with another top consistently measuring 125.2'. So, I
guess the current maximum approaches the historical in the case of
Bigtooth Aspen. It appears that the Rucker composition is now upset,
with BTA replacing black cherry once again. It is kind of nice to have
11 species over 125'h. I remember when black cherry entered the 120'
club -- we've come a ways.

I measured quite a few BTA. They seemed to range closely around 120',
with some higher near the cove wall.

I also went farther up the stream, ending up at what I think is named
the Brant Pine. Is that the uppermost one? I think I did the cbh at a
different place because I got 10.8' and 155.2'h.

I will post a complete list later.
PARTY TIME!!!   Robert Leverett
  Apr 27, 2006 06:37 PDT 

John,

   You did it my friend! You did it! Hey everybody, feast your eyes on
the following lovely, lovely numbers.

Height Species Circumference

167.3 WP 10.4
151.5 WA 6.2
133.8 SM 5.0
133.5 NRO 9.3
131.8 BNH 4.3
130.8 HM 10.9
130.5 AB 8.4
128.0 RM 6.6
126.9 ABW     5.5
126.0 BTA 3.5

Rucker Index
136.01         7.0 YEEEEEHAAAAAAAAA

    We're going to have a party. We're going to have a party.

    What are you doing on Sunday PM? There's enough light now. If the
river isn't too high, we could hit Ash Flats. You aren't going to
believe that spot.

    BTW, the 18th iteration of the Rucker index is 119.9. No question
that we'll make 18 full iterations of 120 or more before long.

    As a sumamry table for Mohawk, we now have

NATIVE SPECIES

No. Species   Height threshold

1              >= 160 (4 trees, maybe 5)
2              >= 150 (79 trees)
2              >= 140 (280 pines, 20 white ashes)
7              >= 130
11             >= 125
12             >= 120
20             >= 100

All SPECIES

No Species   Height threshold

1              >= 160
2              >= 150
2              >= 140
7              >= 130
12             >= 125
13             >= 120
22             >= 100

   You know, John, this is all unbelievably cool. It passed being just
way cool long ago.

    Do we need to establish different levels of Eichholzing?

Bob
What's the fuss all about?   Robert Leverett
  Apr 27, 2006 11:33 PDT 

ENTS,

For those of you new to the list, you may be unaware that in addition
to the Rucker index being of some scientific importance, some of us
can't resist using the concept for sport.

Over most the history of our use of the Rucker index, three
northeastern sites have dominated the rankings for the Northeast. These
sites are:

Zoar Valley, NY at 137.2

Cook Forest, PA at 136.2

Mohawk Trail State Forest, MA at 136.0

Philadelphia's Fairmount Park is close behind the above 3 and may
become a full competitor with more tall tree searches. However, it has
been the top 3 that have provided the inspiration to make extended
searches and perfect our measuring methodology here in the Northeast.
Mohawk started out at the top of the list but lost ground first to Cook,
then Zoar, to wind up in 3rd place. After the index bottoming out at
135.4, it has enjoyed a slow ascendency thanks mainly to mathematician
John Eichholz, who by any standards is an incredible tree-measuring
machine (That's right. John is really our robot). MTSF will likely gain
0.1 points by summer's end, but could go higher, so that the battle for
2nd place is not over. Neither Dale nor I can see either Cook or Mohawk
catching Zoar Valley - an ecological phenomenon. But 137.2 gives us both
something to shoot for. Miracle Grow anyone?

On a more general theme, for comparably sized areas, the southeastern
sites lead the northeastern sites by about 20 points. From the data we
now possess, that appears to be a fairly stable differential. Over an
ever increasingly wide range of species, the differential will likely
float between 17 and 23 points.

At this point, a fair question is where do we want to draw the
north-south line? A reasonable spot would be at 40th parallel. Any line
would be arbitrary, but 40 sounds about right to me, even though it
doesn't match Pennsylvania's southern boundary? Anyone care to vote on
the dividing line for ENTS purposes?

Bob
clark ridge data    John Eichholz
   Apr 27, 2006 19:40 PDT 

ENTS,

Here is some tree data from two recent trips to Clark Ridge in the
Mohawk Trail State Forest. Most of the trees from the 4/26 trip were in
the Shunpike area, which is low on the slope and composed mostly of deep
terrace soils cut by small streams at the base of Clark mountain. The
Deerfield river is only a hundred feet or so below. This rich site is
very diverse, with at least 11 species exceeding 90% of their maximum
heights in MA.

The trees from the 4/25 trip were mostly high on the ridge, where the
average age is much higher than found on the lower slope. For instance,
I found a windthrown beech with approximately 18 rings to the inch, 19"
in diameter at about 10' high. That would likely exceed 170 years old.
There are at least two beech trees in this area (standing) with
diameters of 30". Many old sugar maple and ash trees form alternating
bands across the ridge, some of both in excess of 10' circumference. The
tall maples are widespread, with examples exceeding 125' for most of the
width of the midslope of the ridge. The tall ash are concentrated in
two patches, the larger of which is below the tall maples. There is a
much younger patch of ash high and to the west, with circumferences in
the 5' range, which average 120' to 125' in height.

Below these trees is an exceptional patch of white pine, with several
named trees and two above 160' tall. So, we go back often.

Here is the list, with those quirky id numbers included:

04/26/06
Clark Ridge Shunpike area (?)
Tree ID date species cbh Height
3090032056 4/26/2006 Northern red oak 7 129.12
3090032057 4/26/2006 White Ash 3.7 123.14
3090032058 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.9 126.00
3090032059 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.4 122.94
3090032060 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.5 123.84
3090032061 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.2 121.00
3090032062 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.9 121.24
3090032066 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 4.3 120.66
3090032067 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 4.2 118.81
3090032068 4/26/2006 Bigtooth aspen 3.7 120.67
3090032077 4/26/2006 Northern red oak 6.8 116.50
3090032069 4/26/2006 White Pine 10.8 155.17
3090032070 4/26/2006 White Pine 9.8 151.00
3090032071 4/26/2006 Black birch Nt 93.80
3090032072 4/26/2006 White Pine 8.8 147.61
3090032073 4/26/2006 Northern red oak 7 125.33
3090032074 4/26/2006 Northern red oak 9.1 123.01
3090032075 4/26/2006 Northern red oak 6.6 120.35
3090032055 4/26/2006 White Ash 5.6 144.23
04/25/06
Clark Ridge North face and Shunpike
3090032020 4/25/2006 American Beech 7.8 125.19
3090032023 4/25/2006 Sugar Maple 7.6 132.99
3090032041 4/25/2006 Sugar Maple 7.9 130.77
3090032040 4/25/2006 American Basswood 4.9 117.87
3090032023 4/25/2006 Sugar Maple 7.6 131.11
3090032042 4/25/2006 White Ash 7.2 140.70
3090032044 4/25/2006 American Beech Nt 103.71
3090032043 4/25/2006 White Ash 7.4 137.34
3090032045 4/25/2006 White Ash 10.2 134.63
3090032046 4/25/2006 Sugar Maple Nt 106.97
3090032047 4/25/2006 White Ash Nt 130.55
3090032025 4/25/2006 White Ash 9.4 147.39
3090032048 4/25/2006 White Ash 7.7 135.80
3090032049 4/25/2006 White Ash 5.9 134.41
3090032050 4/25/2006 Sugar Maple 7.5 126.69
3090032051 4/25/2006 White Ash Nt 129.91
3090032052 4/25/2006 Northern red oak 6.3 116.30
3090032053 4/25/2006 American Basswood 5.5 126.86
3090032054 4/25/2006 Bitternut Hickory 4.4 118.67
3090032055 4/25/2006 White Ash 5.6 143.49


John Eichholz
RE: clark ridge data   Robert Leverett
  Apr 28, 2006 05:27 PDT 

John,

   Great list! Very, very valuable. BTW, the (151.0, 9.8) white pine is
the one we call the Oneida Pine. Interestingly, BVP measured it to 154+
feet in Oct 2001. He got only 151+ for the Brant Pine. By contrast, I
have the Oneida pine at (155.0, 9.8) and the Brant Pine at (157.2,
11.2). The 11.2 is very generous. I've also measured it at 10.8. Your
measurement is probably the more accurate of the two. The slope it is
one is a doozy, huh?

   Both the Oneida Pine and the Brant Pine have caused me and others
(Gary Beluzo, John Knuerr) lots of problems over the years. It may be
that both have nested tops that aren't seen or don't reflect laser
bounces from certain vantage points. I don't know, but we probably
should join forces and re-measure them. Any time this Sunday after
2:00PM?

   I was pleased to see that you got a current measurement for the pine
listed as (147.6, 8.8). My Oct 2001 measurement was (146.4, 8.5).

    My friend, we've got to get to Ash Flats. That site is in desperate
need of a good Eichholzing.

Bob