Visit to a Hemlock Ravine

I only discovered the Wescott Nature Preserve, one of the preserves managed by the Hunterdon County Dept. of Parks and Recreation a couple of months ago. The preserve is bisected by the Locatong Creek. And includes one of the few stands of Hemlocks in the County.

I took a walk down into the Hemlock ravine yesterday. In the mud. And I loved every minute of it. The photos were taken in early November, but it looks about the same in mid-February. Walking in the mud along the Creek amongst the Hemlocks, I felt rejuvenated and peaceful. As I write about this place, I am going traveling back to the ravine, and again feel peace.

I needed the shot of peace after spending much of the afternoon trying to learn about airtanker contracts.

Trees in Delaware River floodplain near Frenchtown NJ

I wrote a few days about my walk along the Delaware River south of Frenchtown NJ along the Delaware and Raritan Canal Towpath. Now I am not a Forester or otherwise an expert at tree identification, I am an amateur at this. And I have books that I use to help me. In particular, I found this book in our home library a few days ago:

Collins, Reryl Robichaud and Karl H. Anderson. 1994. Plant Communities of New Jersey: A study in Diversity. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

They have a chapter on freshwater wetlands in northern New Jersey. While not specifically describing the Delaware River floodplains, perhaps because it forms the western border of NJ and PA, they do describe the floodplains of a river that is in the same physiographic region of NJ. Broadly speaking there are four physiographic regions in New Jersey, the portion of the Delaware River that I visit and the town I live in are in the piedmont region.

Collins and Anderson describe the plants located in the floodplain of the Raritan River in the piedmont regions. Two of the trees that they say are found in these floodplains are the River Birch, and the Sycamore. The links that I have provided are from a wetlands plants database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They have a web interface that allows you to narrow your search of wetlands plants to your specific state and by plant type. If you are so inclined, check out the information provided on each of the links I provided for River Birches and Sycamores.

Speaking of Sycamores, I got to know Sycamores because they were numerous Sycamore trees located in the Hundson County town where we used to live. They line many of the residential streets in this town, and are also located in the parks, including the green area along the Passaic River.

I wrote about these two trees, because these were the common trees located in the region between the towpath that we were walking on and the Delaware River. Other trees that we saw were species of Maple and Oak, Hickory and/or Ash and Sweet Gum.

A word about Hickory and Ash. Both have what are known as compound leaflets (5 to 9 leaves). For more information on leaf terminology, see this webpage. There is an important but perhaps subtle difference between the leaf structure of Hickories and Ashes. I'm not sure that I can explain this in any way that will make sense. You will have to trust me that this difference can make it sometimes difficult to distinguish between Ash and Hickories, at least for me. Any tree guide, I have several tree guides including some very good guides put out by the Audubon Society, will have a chapter where they discuss various leaf types and other basic terminology used to identify trees.

Anyway, it was hard for me to distinguish between Ash and Hickory because the foiliage was too high for me to distinguish between the leaf structures of Ashes v Hickories. As for identifying trees by their bark, I am getting better, but it is still hard, sometimes requiring more study. Having read up on Ash and Hickories on my tree guides, when we go back, I may be better able to distinguish between the two.

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

In recent years almost every day trip we have made to the Pine Barrens involves a visit to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest (formerly Lebanon State Forest). We first visited this forest sometime in the late 1980s during our annual late summer visits to relatives with a summer home in a nearby town. I expect that it was during this time that we were first introduced to the 49.5 mile Batona Trail.

The Baton Trail goes through the Byrne State Forest and its terminus is in nearby Ongs Hat, a short drive from the forest office. In addition to this trail, there are a couple of other trails in the forest. The trails go through a pine/oak forest, along side a pond known as pakim pond and an atlantic white cedar swamp. We have hiked in all these areas but I only have digital photos of the pine/oak forest within two miles of the forest office.

I don’t have pictures of Pakim Pond, but I did find this set of photos of pakim pond on the flikr site. These photos are incredible, of much better quality then anything I could do with my little digital camera. These photos are almost as good as being there in person, if not better.

In my recent wonderings on the internet, I found that the NJ Forest Service has an initiative to restore Atlantic White Cedars. Information on this initiative can be found here, and here is a related site, a paper on restoring the Atlantic Whites.

Our visit to Penn State Forest

We did make it to Penn State Forest this past Thursday afternoon. We walked about three-quarters of a mile (or 1.5 miles round trip) up one of the sand roads into what appeared to a forest with normal sized pitch pines, smaller oaks, and blueberry bushes. We did not walk longer because we had already walked a couple of miles earlier in the day and were getting a little tired from a long drive. Anyway, the walk through the forest on this sand road was very soothing, quieting my soul. I saw the beautiful simplicity of this forest, and found all my cares being lifted. I suppose you can say that I feel replenished after our day in the pine barrens.

I think that the Pine Plains with the dwarf or pigmy pines would have involved a walk of at least three or four miles one way, or over eight miles round trip. Our hiking book suggested allowing five hours for the hike. Considering the length of time it takes us to get to this part of the pine barrens, this is more than we would want to do in one day.

When we did longer hikes in the pine barrens we were staying in the Tuckerton area, not far from Penn State Forest and other close by areas where we did longer hikes. The Tuckerton option is no longer available to us. Perhaps we will stay over a night in a hotel/motel next spring or summer and do a longer hike.

Anyway, I promised pictures and here they are. There are two pictures of Oswego Lake and another shot taken looking down the sand road we were walking on.

When we got to the parking area there was a group of young people getting ready to leave and a couple of kayakers on the Lake. When we left, about 1.5 hours later, the young people had left and there were one or two new cars in the parking lot. Otherwise, we had the place to ourselves except for the Park Police making a routine patrol. There is a small sand "beach" with a couple of picnic tables and a new composting toilet. There were no life guards so if you swim, you swim at your own risk. The most I have done was more along the lines of wading and otherwise cooling off and that was about fifteen years ago.

For those of you who are interested, the turn off for Penn State Forest is about seven miles south of Chatsworth NJ (intersection of County Rtes. 563 and 532 on County Rte, 563. The turn off, Lake Oswego Rd, will be on your left and is a paved road. If you get to Mikes Canoe rental or County Rte. 679 you have gone to far.

My trip to the Pine Barrens

We had a great day in the Pine Barrens yesterday. I got many pictures that I have to go through before I post my first batch. I hope to have the first batch ready tomorrow.

We walked for almost four miles in two different places, one of which was Penn State Forest, the one I wrote about recently. Those will be the first group of pictures that I post.

As for chigger prevention. Knock on wood is all I will say right now. . . I sprayed my socks, the skin under my socks and the bottom of my jeans. Then I tucked the jeans into my socks, and looked like an idiot. But I hope it kept those nasty little creatures away. When we got home, I took what I call my "uninvited guest" shower to wash off chiggers and ticks.

We drove about 300 miles all told, and we were both tired when we got home.

As we were driving home, I kept thinking that I saw smoke that looked an awful like smoke coming from a fire. And it turned out I was right, I saw a small article about the fire in my local newspaper, The Star Ledger. It turns out that the fire was in a remote section of the Fort Dix military base, located near the Pine Barrens. See this article and a second updated article, that will be freely available for 14 days or through September 12. At this point, the blaze is confined to a couple of hundred acres wholly within the military base and is no threat to the public.

At least I know that my instincts were right about the smoke that I saw yesterday.

Dwarf Pitch Pines

I have already mentioned that what makes the pine plains unique are the dwarf pitch pines (pinus rigida Mill.) that stand about five feet tall. Also present in the pine plains are blackjack oak (Quercu marilandica Muenchh.) and scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia Wang.). The pine plains ecosystem is specially adapted to fire.

The authors of the first chapter in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good) provide a good explanation of the relationship between the dwarf pitch pines and fire. In the pine plains, the dwarf or pigmy pitch pine has adapted to fire in that the seed bearing cones are closed or serotinous. These “serotinous” cones open only in high heat of the sort that occurs during a fire.

The distinctive character of this dwarf forest is probably the result of very frequent fires over hundreds or even thousands of years. Under such conditions the tree oaks, which are not found in the dwarf forest, would not have been able to maintain themselves, because they bear viable seed only on stems twenty years or more in age. The pitch pines present in this forest are genetically differentiated from other populations of the species. They are less upright, of shorter growth form, and produce cones at an earlier age. Unlike other pitch pines, whose cones open top disperse seed normalyy at maturity, the pitch pines growing in the dwarf forest have closed (or serotinous) cones that open to dispers seed only at high temperatures, such as those occurring during a fire (B. R. Collins, N.F. Good, and R. E. Good “The Landscape of the Pine Barrens”, p.15, in Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land-Use Management edited by B.R. Collins and W.B. Russell, New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1988).

See this link for images of the pine plains taken just after a fire, along with images of growth after the fire.

A more detailed description of the pitch pine, including sections on fire ecology, is found on this usda webpage.

To the Pine Barrens

Tommorrow I am making a day trip to the NJ Pine Barrens. I hope to get to Penn State Forest so I can post some pictures for you. I don't think that I will walk to the pine plains in Penn State Forest, but there is a section of the pine plains on one of major roads, Rte. 539, that traverse the Pine Barrens where I may be able to get some pictures if there is a pull off.

If the gypsy moths have not been bad this year, then I hope to get pictures of the young oak with the very large leaves to show you.

So stay tuned.

In the meantime, check back tomorrow for a post that will be automatically posted around 10 AM.

Penn State Forest

Our first trip to Penn State Forest, not far from Chatsworth NJ was to follow a hike we had read about in our Fifty Hikes in NJ book (by Bruce Scofield, Stella J. Green, H. Neil Zimmerman. 1988. Woodstock VT: Backcountry Publications).

We were attracted to the hike, in part because of the promise of seeing a dwarf pine forest where the pines are about four to six feet high. We had seen dwarf pines, also known as the pine plains, along Rte 539 in Burlington County near Warren Grove. This was a chance to see the dwarf or pigmy pines as they are sometimes known up close and personal. At least more up close and personal then is possible in a car.

Thanks to Google Earth, I have posted an image of what I hope is Penn State Forest and Oswego Lake at the top of this post. We parked in a parking lot near the Lake and walked north on the sand road. It was late August, and it was hot. Sometimes sand roads in the pine barrens are firmly packed and easy to walk on and sometimes the sand is not packed, making walking a little more difficult. Sinking an inch or so into the sand as you walk along these roads on a hot day is not always a easy walk. I think that we got about half-way into our five mile hike before we turned around. To be honest, I'm not sure if the reason we turned back was because we were hot and tired or if we were under a time constraint. We may have made it to the outskirts of the pine plains in Penn State Forest, I don't recall. But I did enjoy the pine forest. For me there is a simplicity and elegance in these pine forests.

stay tuned

Sorry for the tease. We are leaving in about five minutes to go back to the Hunterdon County Fair to watch pig races at 4 PM and then a 4H drill team (horses) demonstration at 5 PM.

I have been wanting to write about an undeveloped State Forest, Penn State Forest that we went to a few times in the Pine Barrens. I was fortunate to remember that we first found about the Penn State Forest through our trusty and now old Fifty Hikes in New Jersey book byBruce Scofield, Stella J. Green, and H. Neil Zimmerman. A hike on the sand roads in the Penn State Forest was featured as one of the hikes. So, remembering the name of the Forest with the nifty little map from the USGS topological maps (Woodsmansie and Oswego Lake Quandrangles), I was able to find this on google earth and downloaded an image.

But I have run out of time, so this will be next entry.

After I return from the fair.

chiggers and gypsy moths

One of my favorite sites in the uplands of the Pine Barrens are the young oaks. The young oaks have these really huge leaves. I mean really huge. Well last year I went to the Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the Pine Barrens armed with my digital camera. I was going to take some pictures of these young oaks. Well, we went and most were either stripped of leaves or the leaves were all chewed up. It was very depressing. And it wasn't just the young oaks, the scrub oaks and the oak trees had chewed up leaves, very small leaves, or were otherwise defoliated. I asked in the park office what had happened and they told me it was gypsy moths. It was quite depressing. So, I couldn't get any pictures for you. I hope to go back to the Pine Barrens in the next few weeks and perhaps I'll get some pictures of these young oaks for you if they haven't been eaten by gypsy moths.

But I did bring back some guests, unwanted guests. In the form of chiggers. Nasty things. For years, I wondered why I got what I thought was poison ivy while I was walking in the pine barrens, especially when I did not see anything that looked like poison ivy. Well, an internet search revealed that these itchy welts on my legs were chiggers. And noooo, I did not wear insect repellent. I think I was wearing long pants but the little nasties managed to get on my legs in spite of my long pants.

Now that I have figured out about chiggers, I will be sure to spray with insect repellent the next time I go to the Pine Barrens.

sand roads in the NJ Pine Barrens

Before I begin, I want to spend a very brief time on terminology. I have always used the term “NJ Pine Barrens” or the “Pine Barrens” when writing about the area some refer to as NJ Pinelands. I am going to continue to do so as I write about the Pine Barrens here unless what I am writing calls for using a more formal designation.

The Pine Barrens have miles upon miles of sand roads traversing the area.. Some go through designated State or Federal preserves, and others, well they just go where they go. The first time I spent some time driving on these sand roads, before I knew any better, I was not paying any attention to whether these roads were on State or Federal land. I saw a sand road, or what I incorrectly referred to as a “dirt road” and I wanted to drive on it.

At the time, I would spend time driving on various dirt roads in northeastern Vermont. These dirt roads were tough on the muffler on my little Honda Civic. I went through one or two mufflers thanks to Vermont. I quickly found out that these roads were a some times hard packed sand, not the rough and potted dirt roads that I was used to in Vermont.

My first tour on these sand roads was through what I now know is a pine forest, probably pitch and shortleaf pines. We had no map, so what I recall doing is driving in on this road for a while, then turning around and going back the way we came in. I was afraid to turn off on the intersecting sand roads fearing that I would get lost. And these were in the days of no cell phones so we would have been up a creek without a paddle. I loved the forest, love at first sight so to speak. There was something calming about the pine forest.

Then there was the time we were exploring other back roads, including sand roads not far from Tuckerton where we were staying. We started out going through another pine forest, and spending some time on sand roads. After several minutes, we passed through a small community. Perhaps a couple dozen houses give or take. It felt like magic and I was enthralled, a small community nestled among the pine forests of the Pine Barrens. We were never able to find this particular small community. I have even wondered if I am misremembering something. But I know what I saw, and I saw these houses.

As I spent more time in the Pine Barrens, I used more discretion in driving on sand roads in the Pine Barrens. Especially after walking on sand roads that I could not begin to imagine driving on. It takes effort to walk through loose sand! And there were a couple of times when we did a “k turn” on narrow dirt roads because we knew that if we went any further we risked getting stuck in loose sand.

I will get back to the Everglades

I have not forgotten about the Everglades, and I do intend to write more about the "Glades. I promise. In the meantime, I want to turn to my own State of New Jersey where I have started to write about one of my very favorite places, the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

New Jersey Pine Barrens

I first spent time in the New Jersey Pine Barrens over twenty years ago. For a period of about ten years, we used to spend a few days each summer at a shore town near the Pine Barrens, so I was able to get to know and love the Pine Barrens. For various reasons, our time in the Pine Barrens has been limited to a day trip here and there, but my love for the Pine Barrens has not diminished.

I want to set the stage for my posts on the NJ Pine Barrens with a brief discussion of different designations for the Pine Barrens. What do I mean by different designations? Ok, I’ll try to keep this simple. The federally designated Pinelands National Reserve covers about 1,719 square miles or 1.1 million acres. In 1981, the New Jersey State Legislature designated a smaller area of 1,460 square miles (934,000 acres) as the Pinelands Area, managed by the NJ Pinelands Commission. These two smaller delineations sit within the larger historical area that many in New Jersey still refer to as the Pine Barrens (2,250 square miles or 1.4 million acres). As I write this paragraph, I would like to mention a book that I am currently (re)reading about the NJ Pine Barrens from which I got these numbers as well as some maps that I am referring to as I am writing this.

For online viewing, the New Jersey Pinelands Commission has a Geographic Information Systems webpage with links to various maps, including this map which also includes the area included in the Pinelands National Reserve (PNR). If you go the PNR website, http://www.nps.gov/pine/ and click on the view map link near the top of the page, you will get a really cool map of the PNR that you can manipulate using online controls. If you do not already have it, I believe that you will need to download the freely available adobe flash player (v.9) in order to view this map.

Protecting the New Jersey Pinelands: A New Direction in Land–Use Management. 1988. Beryl Robichaud Collins and Emily W. B. Russell, editors. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

As some of you are no doubt aware, there is a story behind the federal and state designations that I have referred to above. A brief history of the Pine Barrens including a timeline may be found here.

Conserving the Everglades

Wow.


Speaking of conserving the Everglades, yes there is plan to the restore the Everglades, known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). There is a website that you can go to for information on the CERP, here.

And the site referenced in the above link, Everglades Plan, has a wonderful exposition on why we should restore the Everglades. It is a nicely written, multi-part piece that is easy to read. Please go and check it out.

Finally, Everglades Plan website has a FAQ page, a learn and teach page, news and events, etc.

Don't forgot about the group that Marjory Stoneham Douglas started, the Friends of the Everglades.

I want to put a plug in for the staff of the Everglades National Park (ENP), I had the privilege of talking to a couple of staff from the ENP when I was doing my research all those years ago as well as going on an ENP staff lead tour. All ENP staff that I spoke to were committed to conserving and preserving the Everglades.

Everglades History

I want to say something about the history of the Everglades. And yes, I could post something in my own words, based on the work I did on the Everglades in graduate school all those years ago. I still may, but not today.

Even when and if I do, I would want to point you to some information that you yourself can look at online. So, I am starting with a culture and history page from the Everglades National Park Service's website. Here you will find four links:

1. native peoples.

2. pioneer settlement.

3. development in the Everglades.

4. conservation.

Another brief history of the Everglades may be found here.

I'll point you to some online resources about conserving the Everglades in my next post, so stay tuned!

Everglades: habitats and vegetation

I want to give you with some places you can go to view pictures of the Everglades:

1. vegetation and habit images are from the Everglades Park Service.

2. The Florida Museum of Natural History has this webpage on the Everglades. I have not had a chance to check it out yet, but it looks really cool. I found it about it from the links page of the Friends of the Everglades.

Everglades wildlife

Well, I spent some time yesterday looking through my house for the pictures of the Everglades that I took on my 2001 trip to no avail.

We did see alligators reasonably close up, which means that we saw them in some wetlands from a trail from a safe distance of several feet.

I also recall seeing a couple of herons close up. We had just turned onto one of the dirt roads off of U.S. Rte 41 to drive north. Just after we turned, I saw a couple of herons standing in some water. I stopped the car, at first wanting to try to get a picture. They were pretty close, perhaps 5 to 7 feet away. I decided that this was not one of those photo moments because I did not want to risk having them fly away. Instead, I watched the herons go about there business for a couple of minutes. The image if forever etched in my mind. We drove away after a couple of minutes not wanting to disturb them.

Here are some links where you may go to view Everglades wildlife:

1. A page with wildlife photographs at the Friends of the Everglades webpage, and

2. The Everglades National Park maintains a wildlife image gallery that may be found here.

Visit to the Everglades over Christmas 2001

I had a chance to visit the Everglades over Christmas of 2001. We left early on a Saturday morning and drove to Lorton VA outside Washington D.C. where we caught the over night auto train to Sanford Florida, not far from Orlando. We stayed near Kissimmee, within a stones throw of Disney World and related theme parks. This may sound horrifying to some of you, but we were not all that interested in Disney World and the other theme parks. Rather we spent a quiet day or say at the complex where we stayed. Our plan called for us to leave on the day after Christmas to drive down to the Everglades, staying over night about 30 miles east of Naples. Instead, we called the hotel, added a night onto our stay, and left Christmas day.

The next day was our day in the Everglades. We got on U.S. Rte. 41, that I think may also be referred to as the Tamiami Trail. Our first stop was a tour boat service officially sanctioned by the Everglades National Park Service (ENP). I don't recall the exact nature of the affiliation of this tour boat service with the ENP except that I had the impression that it had some kind of "stamp of approval" from the ENP. It was a little cool for Florida and windy, so we were glad that we had some light jackets aka windbreakers with us. We spent about one hour touring around the islands and the water ways near Everglades City. I was awestruck. I have pictures from our day in the Everglades, but they are not digital. One of these days, I may try to dig them up and get digital copies made.

We grabbed some food, and drove back to U.S. Rte. 41 continuing our drive across U.S. 41. My friend drove, and I looked outside the window at the "river of grass." It was magical to see the "river of grass". I thought of Marjory Stoneham Douglas' words. I saw the canals and the infrastructure for various water control projects that changed the shape of the 'Glades. I tried to imagine what the 'Glades were like all those years ago.

After 90 minutes or so, we came to our next stop in the ENP where there is an observation, some short trails, and a chance to sign up for a tour. We walked the trail and took the tour. Again, I rejoiced in seeing the "river of grass", and seeing the wildlife that I had read about. We finished the tour and headed back east, spending a little time on some of the dirt roads off of Rte. 41 and stopping at a trail head and walking through a forest.

I wish that I had kept a written diary of that day, I did not. Nonetheless, the images of what we saw live on.

More on Horseshoe Crabs

A while back I wrote about horseshoe crabs in my blog. I recently got my summer edition of the Nature Conservancy's magazine. In May and June Nature Conservancy participated in a horseshoe crab census near Cape May, New Jersey. There is an article about their work with horseshoe crabs here.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

It was sometime in 1990 or early 1991 when I began reading about the Everglades for a research project I did as a part of my work in graduate school.. It did not take long for me to hear the name Marjory Stoneman Douglas in connection with the Everglades. I don't remember where I first heard her name, it may have been someone from the Everglades National Park. Not that it matters.

She wrote a book, first published in 1947, called The Everglades: River of Grass. I was urged to read the book. I found a copy at my University's library and read it. I later picked up a revised edition (1987) with an afterward, from the Everglades National Park Service.

The Friends of the Everglades was founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, you might want to check out their bio of her here. Their mission is to protect and restore the Everglades.

At the time I did my research, I had never been to the Everglades. In reading her book, especially her first chapter, the Everglades came alive to me. She had the gift of painting a wonderful visual picture of the 'Glades. Her first sentence is poignant:

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, never wholly known. (Stoneham Douglas, 1987, p.5)

I felt her sadness as she told of the destruction of large portions of her beloved 'Glades. It was her advocacy on behalf of the 'Glades that was, in large measure, responsible for the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947. She died at the age of 108 in the late 1998.