Zoar Valley, New York

These seven JPEGs that give a nice visual tour of Zoar Valley's Gallery of Giants, an especially impressive corridor of broadleaf riparian woodlands along the bottom of the canyon. It's ALL virgin old growth - not one sign of deliberate disturbance.- Tom Diggins (Sept 28, 2003)

zoar1.jpg (61098 bytes) Zoar1. Looking upstream in the Main Canyon of Cattaraugus Creek (~400' deep). Dry south-facing slopes and ridges to the left, with riverside terraces and wetter north-facing slopes to the right. All are unlogged primary forest. 
zoar2.jpg (107702 bytes) Zoar2. Terrace forest where erosion exposes canopy structure. Bruce Kershner next to 141' tulip tree. Sixteen species exceed 100' in this section of the Gallery of Giants, covering a mere eight acres! 
zoar3.jpg (86335 bytes) Zoar3. Excellent gnarl factor on this 115' x 8' CBH sugar maple. 
zoar4.jpg (101621 bytes) Zoar4. Jerry Horowitz with 11' 9" CBH x 110' American beech. The second largest beech in Zoar.
zoar5.jpg (120048 bytes) Zoar5. Pair of impressive sycamores in one of the Gallery's bottomland groves. Tree in foreground is 145' tall. 
zoar6.jpg (79183 bytes) Awesome camouflage bark on huge fallen sycamore, 145'+ x 12' CBH, about 80' from the base. Now that's coarse woody debris! 
zoar7.jpg (108240 bytes) One of Zoar's cathedral tulip tree groves. Canopy is 135 - 156'.