Tom Rankin
Well-known member
Laurie and I met Dr. Mike Kudish at 8:10 at his house, all of 5 minutes from the trailhead to Balsam Mountain. We were going to accompany him on one of his trips to search for old growth forest and forest history related to old growth.
We hiked up to the lean-to and then began a bushwhack that would last almost 5 hours. We did not summit any countable peak, nor did we gain a huge amount of elevation, or cover a lot of miles, but it was the best bushwhack of my life!
'Dr. Mike', as Laurie calls him, is an expert in Catskill Forestry. He is now retired from teaching, and as such, can spend more time than ever researching his favorite topic. Listening to him discuss the many plants and trees that we passed along the way was fascinating. Dr. Mike not only knows the taxonomy of each species he sees, but in many cases, he knows how it relates to the human history of the Catskills. As an example, he noticed that on one side of the summit ridge of Haynes, there were a lot oaks, but on the other side, none at all. He believes this was due to the hard woods being harvested for charcoal in nearby valleys. The disturbance in the forest is what allowed the oaks to then grow up and dominate the area. The sharp line could have been an old property line. He has only ideas now, but he will now go and research his hypothesis in local libraries. During our trip, he took 2 pages of notes. He said those 2 pages will take many hours of followup study and recording.
We took a series of old roads from just above the lean-to and zig-zagged our way up the side of Haynes. Laurie had been to on old farm site up on the side a few years ago with her parents. She lead the way right to a place where the road went between an opening in a stone wall. From here the forest could be seen by even a novice such as myself to have been altered in many ways. There was the road and the wall of course, but there was a large of stand of 'pine' trees as I would have called them before, all the same size. These turned out to be Norway Spruce, and Laurie told us that the CCC had planted these trees. This gave Dr. Mike an approximate age of the trees, but he proceeded to apply 3 different aging methods to determine precisely how old the trees were. The final conclusion was that they were planted in 1940. (More research will tell for sure). We walked thru the spruce and discovered a meadow about 200'x150'. This turned out to be a fascinating place. There were fresh bear tracks that lead to a spring. There was the ruins of an old house just above the meadow. There were traces of spring boxes in the meadow. A variety of flowers grew here. We speculated on what type of farming might have been done here. The meadow was too flat to have been natural, too small for crops, but perhaps too big for a livestock area. Another little mystery.
We gained the summit ridge of Haynes after about 2 hours, and stopped for lunch. The bugs found us, but we were well prepared with DEET! After lunch, we explored the ridge and bushwhacked down a different route towards our car. Dr. Mike is also a very capable back woods navigator. He was prepared with several maps, a barometer, his knowledge of local terrain, and his sightings of the Sun. (He had a compass but never used it). Since we both have a passing interest in astronomy, we fell to discussing the equation of time as it relates to navigating, then daylight savings time, (which he has avoided for 43 years!), then longitude, standard time zones, and finally Dr. Mike related this to the railroad's need for a consistent time. As it happens, he is also an expert on old railroads. What a fascinating converstaion we had as we whacked down the side of the mountain!
We found many examples of old growth, including Sugar Maple and Yellow Birch, estimated to be as much as 36" in diameter. Eventually we returned to the same contour as the clearing where the only old growth seemed to be Sugar Maple, perhaps the remnants of sugaring operations. All the other trees surrounding it were young timber.
We returned to the car around 2:00 PM, and drove Dr. Mike back to his house. It was a relaxing day, filled with fascinating discoveries in the forest!
Dr. Mike has told us that anyone who wants to tag along with him is welcome to join him. PM me if you are interested.
We hiked up to the lean-to and then began a bushwhack that would last almost 5 hours. We did not summit any countable peak, nor did we gain a huge amount of elevation, or cover a lot of miles, but it was the best bushwhack of my life!
'Dr. Mike', as Laurie calls him, is an expert in Catskill Forestry. He is now retired from teaching, and as such, can spend more time than ever researching his favorite topic. Listening to him discuss the many plants and trees that we passed along the way was fascinating. Dr. Mike not only knows the taxonomy of each species he sees, but in many cases, he knows how it relates to the human history of the Catskills. As an example, he noticed that on one side of the summit ridge of Haynes, there were a lot oaks, but on the other side, none at all. He believes this was due to the hard woods being harvested for charcoal in nearby valleys. The disturbance in the forest is what allowed the oaks to then grow up and dominate the area. The sharp line could have been an old property line. He has only ideas now, but he will now go and research his hypothesis in local libraries. During our trip, he took 2 pages of notes. He said those 2 pages will take many hours of followup study and recording.
We took a series of old roads from just above the lean-to and zig-zagged our way up the side of Haynes. Laurie had been to on old farm site up on the side a few years ago with her parents. She lead the way right to a place where the road went between an opening in a stone wall. From here the forest could be seen by even a novice such as myself to have been altered in many ways. There was the road and the wall of course, but there was a large of stand of 'pine' trees as I would have called them before, all the same size. These turned out to be Norway Spruce, and Laurie told us that the CCC had planted these trees. This gave Dr. Mike an approximate age of the trees, but he proceeded to apply 3 different aging methods to determine precisely how old the trees were. The final conclusion was that they were planted in 1940. (More research will tell for sure). We walked thru the spruce and discovered a meadow about 200'x150'. This turned out to be a fascinating place. There were fresh bear tracks that lead to a spring. There was the ruins of an old house just above the meadow. There were traces of spring boxes in the meadow. A variety of flowers grew here. We speculated on what type of farming might have been done here. The meadow was too flat to have been natural, too small for crops, but perhaps too big for a livestock area. Another little mystery.
We gained the summit ridge of Haynes after about 2 hours, and stopped for lunch. The bugs found us, but we were well prepared with DEET! After lunch, we explored the ridge and bushwhacked down a different route towards our car. Dr. Mike is also a very capable back woods navigator. He was prepared with several maps, a barometer, his knowledge of local terrain, and his sightings of the Sun. (He had a compass but never used it). Since we both have a passing interest in astronomy, we fell to discussing the equation of time as it relates to navigating, then daylight savings time, (which he has avoided for 43 years!), then longitude, standard time zones, and finally Dr. Mike related this to the railroad's need for a consistent time. As it happens, he is also an expert on old railroads. What a fascinating converstaion we had as we whacked down the side of the mountain!
We found many examples of old growth, including Sugar Maple and Yellow Birch, estimated to be as much as 36" in diameter. Eventually we returned to the same contour as the clearing where the only old growth seemed to be Sugar Maple, perhaps the remnants of sugaring operations. All the other trees surrounding it were young timber.
We returned to the car around 2:00 PM, and drove Dr. Mike back to his house. It was a relaxing day, filled with fascinating discoveries in the forest!
Dr. Mike has told us that anyone who wants to tag along with him is welcome to join him. PM me if you are interested.
