peakbagger
In Rembrance , July 2024
20 years ago the whites and much of Maine, NH, VT and southern Quebec were in the first day of a three day ice storm now memorialized as the Ice Storm of 1998. Many of the local media stations have had retrospectives of the anniversary mostly covering the major and extended destruction of the electric distribution system. What I haven’t seen is much on the impact to the woods and the trail network which most likely was the biggest disturbance since the Hurricane of 1938 and the subsequent fires in the 1940s.
The initial ice storm was drizzle, the strange part was the ground was cold so the drizzle didn’t drip off the trees, it just built up as ice. This drizzle lasted for three days and not far into the first day, the power lines started to fail due to ice loading or trees loaded with ice falling across them. The town of Randolph near me was particularly hit hard as the power system appears to have gone in as an afterthought and the utilities tended to do minimal maintenance as the summer residents objected to it. Early on in the event the power lines went down on most of the side roads and the utility just shut off the power. The freezing conditions varied in elevation but locally it was most significant starting around 1100 feet and working up to 2500 feet, although the ice built up lower in the Randolph valley. After the first three days, the sun came out and the extent of the damage was quite visible. Every surface had 1 to 2 inches of ice and the woods were frozen. The sound of breaking branches was near continuous and as things warmed up there would be large ice falls raining ice and broken branches down into the woods. It was dangerous to walk in the woods as at any moment tons of ice could come raining down. Even if someone wanted to walk in the woods it was littered with broken crowns. The odd part was the woods were quite pretty during the day time as the ice in the trees reflected the sunlight.
Softwoods tended to be tall frozen pillars, the branches bent down to near vertical and then froze in place. White birches tended to bend over with the crowns touching the ground and being frozen into it. The hardest hit were mature hardwood stands with a well-developed canopy. In many areas like the Valley Way and the RMC trails on the south slope of Mt Crescent, the woods were littered several feet deep with what formerly was the crowns of the most mature trees, many trees still had large branches partially snapped hanging from trees. Many of the most mature hardwoods that had most likely been growing since the 1800s were just a 2 to 3 foot diameter stem sticking up 30 to 50 feet with no branches. White birches survived but never went vertical again, I see many birches of the era leaned over horizontally with branches resembling small trees growing vertically upward.
It took about a week for the woods to melt out to the point where attempts could be made to get in the woods to assess the conditions. There was no organized efforts initially, The USFS and AMC had few field crews in January and they were quite busy trying to protect their properties. RMC did have a caretaker up at Gray Knob and by default he (or she) had to assess the trails as that was the only way down off the mountain. The primary forum for the whites was VFTT, the FS claimed that they would set up an information page but it never was set up and VFTT became the default site to make trail reports in the net. The initial reports were by individuals and were grim with trails totally impassable until folks got up above 2500 feet. Most of the initial assessment and trail clearing were by individuals with hand tools. RMC and other local trail clubs started organizing volunteer groups to start opening up trails. Initially a lot of questions weren’t asked about the qualifications of volunteers. I went out one day with my chainsaw gear and cleared trees without certification for the entire day. I luckily had a chainsaw helmet and Kevlar chaps as one of my swampers was Mike Dickerman and I ended up with my photo in full gear on regional newspapers. Soon money and resources started to get ramped up and the pros moved in.
In Randolph, club members from all over started sending money to the club even before the stated asking for it. They initially concentrated on the south side of RT 2 on the main routes to the summits but soon moved across RT2 to tackle the south slope of the Crescent range with its dense network of trails. This area had been the core of the Randolph summer hiking colony since the late 1800’s and the woods were mostly mature maple stands intermixed with ancient yellow birches ,occasionally large beeches and a few big cherry trees mixed in. There were some softwood stands and occasion pockets of old Hemlocks but they were in the minority. The trails were “toast”. Large crowns had crashed down and in many cases had bent over smaller less mature but more limber smaller trees. In many spots this was 10 feet deep. By the time this effort got going RMC started assigning more experience trained sawyers and the volunteers now became swampers. I had a Swedish brush ax and it was great for swamping the small stuff. The sawyers had it tough as cutting one tree might start a chain reaction where trapped trees would spring up. We stayed back while they cut the big stuff and then we cut it up into smaller pieces with whatever tools we brought and then had to stuff the wood butt end first completely in the woods so that it would look natural in the future. In some cases we ran out of room in the woods to stuff branches and would have to haul it back up the trail in a more open spot. The typical crew was 8 to 10 people, two sawyers and the rest swampers. Even working steadily, opening 2 or 3 miles in a typical day was regarded as a successful day. I put in three weekends and by then the trails were mostly open. Depending on the folks doing the clearing, a lot of the really big trees were left lying across the trail with branches trimmed back to allow getting over them. Eventually special funding came through and the FS, AMC and RMC as well as other groups went in and cut the big stuff.
The major effects continued to be visible for the next few years. Hiking in the summer of 98 was odd, what once were shady woods walks turned into sunny hikes with lots of unusual views appearing. Driving down forest service roads was interesting. The east side of Hurricane Mountain road was particularly striking. The entire woods were just mature hardwood stems with zero canopy left. All over the trail network were many hanging branches and they would continue to fall for a couple of years. Spring trail cleanups were a lot more extensive. I carried a hand saw and usually would end up cutting several large tree branches fallen across the trail on every hike. About a year later the undergrowth that had been held in check due to the mature canopy exploded. Hobblebush and raspberries were choking out less used trails. Many of the best blazes cut into the bark were on the older trees and many were dead or dying. The FS no longer allowed cutting bark for blazes and had switched to far less durable latex paint so the amount and quality of blazing took a significant step downwards.
Twenty years later, I still have a couple of trees in my yard with some broken crown parts still hanging. I either cut or pruned the remaining trees I could reach with a pruning pole and many re-established a crown. In Randolph the woods are growing back but there are still many ghost trees, large diameter rotting stems hinting of what once was there. Unfortunately beech being a secondary tree in the forest tends to be quite resilient and will readily sprout from roots or stump, in many spots the beech have taken over the woods and beech blight quickly moved in leading to a lot of blighted misshapen beech stands. In other spots smaller maples recovered and have taken back the canopy but especially in the winter the damage in the woods is still evident. The hidden cost is that the trees that survived tend to have rot and defects making a big dent in the potential future income for landowners. Many landowners clear cut their land quickly after the event but many lost interest in spending the time to make sure it regenerated correctly leaving low grade stands. Hancock Timber (owned by the John Hancock Insurance Company) had bought much of the remaining Brown Company holdings in the north country of NH a few years prior to the Ice storm. Despite their claims that they were going to own and manage it forever, they put the entire block on sale to the highest bidder. The citizens in Randolph created the Randolph Town forest and with state and local help they bought the land in their town and sold the Pond of Safety land within the national forest declaration boundary to the forest service that claimed that they would be building a USFS campground at the Pond. Much of the rest of the land was sold to what would become the infamous Dillon logging company that high graded what they could with no respect of any logging conservation protections. They have pretty well cut what they own and with a little green mail to the government to sell their frontage on the AT and a check from the state of NH to buy the clearcut and trashed 7000 acre block of land in Jericho for an ATV park they have made a bundle. Their final act which will happen any year now is to sell their remaining land in the Success Area.
I expect much of the current hiking public who weren’t around for the event don’t even know what happened but for those who lived it I don’t think they ever will forget it.
The initial ice storm was drizzle, the strange part was the ground was cold so the drizzle didn’t drip off the trees, it just built up as ice. This drizzle lasted for three days and not far into the first day, the power lines started to fail due to ice loading or trees loaded with ice falling across them. The town of Randolph near me was particularly hit hard as the power system appears to have gone in as an afterthought and the utilities tended to do minimal maintenance as the summer residents objected to it. Early on in the event the power lines went down on most of the side roads and the utility just shut off the power. The freezing conditions varied in elevation but locally it was most significant starting around 1100 feet and working up to 2500 feet, although the ice built up lower in the Randolph valley. After the first three days, the sun came out and the extent of the damage was quite visible. Every surface had 1 to 2 inches of ice and the woods were frozen. The sound of breaking branches was near continuous and as things warmed up there would be large ice falls raining ice and broken branches down into the woods. It was dangerous to walk in the woods as at any moment tons of ice could come raining down. Even if someone wanted to walk in the woods it was littered with broken crowns. The odd part was the woods were quite pretty during the day time as the ice in the trees reflected the sunlight.
Softwoods tended to be tall frozen pillars, the branches bent down to near vertical and then froze in place. White birches tended to bend over with the crowns touching the ground and being frozen into it. The hardest hit were mature hardwood stands with a well-developed canopy. In many areas like the Valley Way and the RMC trails on the south slope of Mt Crescent, the woods were littered several feet deep with what formerly was the crowns of the most mature trees, many trees still had large branches partially snapped hanging from trees. Many of the most mature hardwoods that had most likely been growing since the 1800s were just a 2 to 3 foot diameter stem sticking up 30 to 50 feet with no branches. White birches survived but never went vertical again, I see many birches of the era leaned over horizontally with branches resembling small trees growing vertically upward.
It took about a week for the woods to melt out to the point where attempts could be made to get in the woods to assess the conditions. There was no organized efforts initially, The USFS and AMC had few field crews in January and they were quite busy trying to protect their properties. RMC did have a caretaker up at Gray Knob and by default he (or she) had to assess the trails as that was the only way down off the mountain. The primary forum for the whites was VFTT, the FS claimed that they would set up an information page but it never was set up and VFTT became the default site to make trail reports in the net. The initial reports were by individuals and were grim with trails totally impassable until folks got up above 2500 feet. Most of the initial assessment and trail clearing were by individuals with hand tools. RMC and other local trail clubs started organizing volunteer groups to start opening up trails. Initially a lot of questions weren’t asked about the qualifications of volunteers. I went out one day with my chainsaw gear and cleared trees without certification for the entire day. I luckily had a chainsaw helmet and Kevlar chaps as one of my swampers was Mike Dickerman and I ended up with my photo in full gear on regional newspapers. Soon money and resources started to get ramped up and the pros moved in.
In Randolph, club members from all over started sending money to the club even before the stated asking for it. They initially concentrated on the south side of RT 2 on the main routes to the summits but soon moved across RT2 to tackle the south slope of the Crescent range with its dense network of trails. This area had been the core of the Randolph summer hiking colony since the late 1800’s and the woods were mostly mature maple stands intermixed with ancient yellow birches ,occasionally large beeches and a few big cherry trees mixed in. There were some softwood stands and occasion pockets of old Hemlocks but they were in the minority. The trails were “toast”. Large crowns had crashed down and in many cases had bent over smaller less mature but more limber smaller trees. In many spots this was 10 feet deep. By the time this effort got going RMC started assigning more experience trained sawyers and the volunteers now became swampers. I had a Swedish brush ax and it was great for swamping the small stuff. The sawyers had it tough as cutting one tree might start a chain reaction where trapped trees would spring up. We stayed back while they cut the big stuff and then we cut it up into smaller pieces with whatever tools we brought and then had to stuff the wood butt end first completely in the woods so that it would look natural in the future. In some cases we ran out of room in the woods to stuff branches and would have to haul it back up the trail in a more open spot. The typical crew was 8 to 10 people, two sawyers and the rest swampers. Even working steadily, opening 2 or 3 miles in a typical day was regarded as a successful day. I put in three weekends and by then the trails were mostly open. Depending on the folks doing the clearing, a lot of the really big trees were left lying across the trail with branches trimmed back to allow getting over them. Eventually special funding came through and the FS, AMC and RMC as well as other groups went in and cut the big stuff.
The major effects continued to be visible for the next few years. Hiking in the summer of 98 was odd, what once were shady woods walks turned into sunny hikes with lots of unusual views appearing. Driving down forest service roads was interesting. The east side of Hurricane Mountain road was particularly striking. The entire woods were just mature hardwood stems with zero canopy left. All over the trail network were many hanging branches and they would continue to fall for a couple of years. Spring trail cleanups were a lot more extensive. I carried a hand saw and usually would end up cutting several large tree branches fallen across the trail on every hike. About a year later the undergrowth that had been held in check due to the mature canopy exploded. Hobblebush and raspberries were choking out less used trails. Many of the best blazes cut into the bark were on the older trees and many were dead or dying. The FS no longer allowed cutting bark for blazes and had switched to far less durable latex paint so the amount and quality of blazing took a significant step downwards.
Twenty years later, I still have a couple of trees in my yard with some broken crown parts still hanging. I either cut or pruned the remaining trees I could reach with a pruning pole and many re-established a crown. In Randolph the woods are growing back but there are still many ghost trees, large diameter rotting stems hinting of what once was there. Unfortunately beech being a secondary tree in the forest tends to be quite resilient and will readily sprout from roots or stump, in many spots the beech have taken over the woods and beech blight quickly moved in leading to a lot of blighted misshapen beech stands. In other spots smaller maples recovered and have taken back the canopy but especially in the winter the damage in the woods is still evident. The hidden cost is that the trees that survived tend to have rot and defects making a big dent in the potential future income for landowners. Many landowners clear cut their land quickly after the event but many lost interest in spending the time to make sure it regenerated correctly leaving low grade stands. Hancock Timber (owned by the John Hancock Insurance Company) had bought much of the remaining Brown Company holdings in the north country of NH a few years prior to the Ice storm. Despite their claims that they were going to own and manage it forever, they put the entire block on sale to the highest bidder. The citizens in Randolph created the Randolph Town forest and with state and local help they bought the land in their town and sold the Pond of Safety land within the national forest declaration boundary to the forest service that claimed that they would be building a USFS campground at the Pond. Much of the rest of the land was sold to what would become the infamous Dillon logging company that high graded what they could with no respect of any logging conservation protections. They have pretty well cut what they own and with a little green mail to the government to sell their frontage on the AT and a check from the state of NH to buy the clearcut and trashed 7000 acre block of land in Jericho for an ATV park they have made a bundle. Their final act which will happen any year now is to sell their remaining land in the Success Area.
I expect much of the current hiking public who weren’t around for the event don’t even know what happened but for those who lived it I don’t think they ever will forget it.
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