Bedford Reservation is pocket of old growth in the midst the sprawling suburbs of the Cleveland Metropolitan area. The geography is very similar to the Zoar Valley but on a smaller scale. There is a narrow flat plain beside the lake which rapidly rises into hilly terrain above it. The bedrock appears to shale. The cuyahoga river (yeah the one that caught fire) cuts into these uplands and Tinkers creek is a tributary of it. This area is just inside the zone of heavy lake affect precipitation which gives it 5-10" more inches of precipitation a year than the rest of northern ohio. The cuyahog river cuts a deep, steep valley through the area and much of the rugged terrain on the slopes is preserved in Cuyahoga National Park and various Metroparks. The rest, unfortunately is pushing housing developments.

The Creek itself cuts a gorge ~2.5 miles long and 140' feet deep with a fall of ~220' over the ~2.5 miles of it's length. Large sections are old growth/large second growth forest, as is noticeable from the Google earth snapshot below (the view is ~2.4 miles wide). The small part I explored is circled in red.

When hiking into the gorge you first start on flat terrain that is dominated by White and black oaks. As it gradually slopes downhill tuliptree and red oaks take over the dominant position. In the steeper draws before the cliff proper you start seeing more sugar maple, beeches, and elms. Finally there is ~100' cliff with a scattering of Eastern hemlock clinging to the edge that drops down into the gorge proper. Inside the meanders there are a couple of small streamside benches. On the one small bench I explored I found three large sycamores, 121', 135' & 147' tall. Curiously these were the only big trees I found on the bench. The rest were an uninspiring mixture of elms, ashes, etc less than 1' dbh. It'd be nice to think there are a diversity of species of very tall trees to be found on other benches like in zoar, but this one sample isn't encouraging and it's hard to tell from the GE shots.

One of the things that really strikes you is just how vigorous the Red Oaks appear. For example here's a snapshot at one of the densest parts. The big trees are all in the 3'-4' dbh range and 110'-120' size class. Only the Tuliptrees could keep up, and there were noticeably fewer of them.

Here's a shot straight up at one of the fattest one:

There is even a decent sized slippery elm (you almost never find a tree of this size in forest setting in northwest ohio):

== 5 of 11 == Date: Sun, Jul 27 2008 12:19 pm From: "Will Blozan"

Randy,

Great stuff! Do you think those sycamores are still going up? Those white oaks are quite tall and an impressive ash for sure. I do hope you get to explore more of the site.

Thanks for the great report!

Will

== 6 of 11 == Date: Sun, Jul 27 2008 4:26 pm From: "Edward Frank"

Randy,

Excellent report on Tinker's Creek Gorge. While at Holden Arboretum last fall, one of the people told me of a very old Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica) in one of the Metroparks, but unfortunately he did not elaborate on which one. Impressive finds in some of the species. The tallest sycamore we have found in Pennsylvania is 147.7 in the Allegheny River Islands Wilderness on Baler Island. This can be considered a tie for the tallest for the region. Great job and I hope you continue the exploration of the area. I wish we could find some way to better characterized the outstanding sites besides just tree height. Somethingthat could be quantified or at least enumerated.

Ed Frank

== 7 of 11 == Date: Sun, Jul 27 2008 6:06 pm From: dbhguru@comcast.net

Ed,

The tallest sycamore we've found in the Northeast is in Zoar Valley. It is 152 feet tall. Yep, I'm back. Lots to tell the list. All in good time.

Bob

== 9 of 11 == Date: Sun, Jul 27 2008 7:58 pm From: "Steve Galehouse"

ENTS-

There are a lot of interesting areas in the Cuyahoga River valley and its associated creeks(pronounced "Kehogga" by the "natives", as I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls), even some relict populations of white pine, Canadian yew, and trailing arbutus. In the river gorge proper, near Akron, there are large yellow birch, white oaks, hemlock, tuliptree, and butternut, with an understory of very large witch-hazel. If any ENTs types are planning a trip to the area, I'd love to try to tag along.

Steve

== 11 of 11 == Date: Sun, Jul 27 2008 8:18 pm From: Randy Brown

Ed,

Erhm, the nature center in Rocky Fork Reservation (west side, by the airport) had a nice black gum cookie that was ~400 years old. I asked the staff and they weren't sure where it had come from but they assumed it was local.

I'm a little frustrated with characterizing sites by willy-nilly measuring single trees. I'd be nice if you could devise a radar that would return the crown and the ground so you could generate two surfaces. One for the ground and one for the crown height. Then you could calculate the average difference between the two for the average height of the forest as a whole.

Randy