Shelburne Moriah 9/30

[arghman]

My original plan was to take the day off Friday and hike Shelburne Moriah and Moriah via Carter/Moriah Trail and the AT (with a short spur to Shelburne M. via the Kenduskeag Trail), for botany and redlining purposes. (I've been to both summits before, Moriah from Stony Brook and Shelburne M from the east.) A couple of other hikers were interested but things did not quite work out so I set off on the Rattle River Trail solo, thinking of perhaps begging a ride from another hiker on the way down from Moriah, or calling Ez-Taxi once I got back to Gorham.

I hadn't gone on any solo hikes of significant length since my Tripyramids hike on 8/14, so it was perhaps a good thing. I ran into one person early in my hike, a guy heading down the Rattle River trail with a Dartmouth cap on; the rest of the time I had the trail and the mountain all to myself, I think. (Except for about ten ravens doing acrobatics around noontime above the ledges west of Shelburne Moriah. They flew away as soon as I got out my camera. ) It was a bit brisk but sunny & by the time I got up high enough to see the Presis with their veil of snow from Thursday's storm, much of it seemed to have disappeared, and it didn't make a good picture.

I had been considering bushwhacking to Middle Moriah also, but never got that far (or Moriah either for that matter) due to botany delays. Oh, well. A very nice free-form day.

hiking time:
Rattle River Tr, Rt 2 -> AT: 4.3 mi, 2540 ft, 2:00
Kenduskeag Tr from AT -> Shelburne Moriah summit: 1.3 mi, 500 ft or so, 1:15
Kenduskeag Tr from Shelburne Moriah summit -> AT: 1.3 mi, 4:00
Rattle River Tr, AT -> Rt 2: 4.3 mi, 1:30

bog


another bog (spent about 15 mins taking pictures at this one)


Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum), at yet another boggy spot. The late afternoon light made for nice pictures, but I was starting to get nervous I'd run out of daylight.


Bog laurel (Kalmia polifolia) with withered seedpods. The big fat leaves are its cousin, sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia). Besides the sphagnum moss we also have Labrador tea, and mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) in the lower left. The roundish leaves bottom center that sort of look like blueberry, could be blueberry (V. angustifolium) but are more likely leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata).


Two spruce species, side by side. Note the different color needles. Unfortunately I'm not so good w/ remembering tree variations. I have no excuse for this one, as they were both pointed out to me two months ago in a similar locale by someone from the Nature Conservancy. I think the one on the left is red spruce (Picea rubens), on the right is black spruce (Picea mariana), but I may have that backwards. (Where's Spencer when you need him??? )

 

[sapblatt]

Nice report and pics!

 

[spencer]

Hi Arghman,

you got it right with the spruces, but remember that they hybridize wildly. the only times that they are obviously one or the other is when you find bog black spruce (they are obvious b/c they have very slender, spindly, narrow crowns - remember Alton Bog?) or in some krummholz environments. However, not all krummholz assemblages are black spruce. they hybridize there, too and so it's difficult to tell the difference.

if you want to get into the thick of things, there was some work published out of UMaine here in the 90s. It was a hybrid index for red and black spruce that utilized several variables to rate the two between 1 (red) and 5 (black). Cone morphology turns out to the best indicator. The shape and size of the individual cone scales reveal a lot!

if you are interested, I can dig the pub up from my crevasse of literature...

also, I'm think you are right that it's leatherleaf, not a vaccinium spp.

spencer

 

[arghman]

you got it right with the spruces, but remember that they hybridize wildly.

argh -- I hate that, the only thing worse than hybrids for IDing plants is when the taxonomists start getting into holy wars about species names and whether things are species or varieties or whatever.

Notable in this case is the fact that the black spruces in this area on the Kenduskeag Tr had numerous cones, whereas the fir trees and red spruces didn't appear to have any cones at all. I've been trying to take pictures of the cones (when I remember it) all year and haven't noticed any fir trees in the Whites which have cones. Seems very odd.

Trees are actually very difficult to take good pictures of; they have detail on too many different scales.

 

[spencer]

Trees are actually very difficult to take good pictures of; they have detail on too many different scales.

don't I know it!

re: fir cones - we've noticed it up here, too. There is a huge lack of fir cone production this year. We had a bumper crop last year and it tends to be cyclical, so it's not surprising. in fact, I had to abandoned one phase of a research project b/c of the lack of fir cones this season.

spencer

 

[sknydpper]

I enjoyed your trip report with the botany pics. My mom was a botany major, so when I hike with her, it is like one huge botany lesson. I don't always rememer the names I learn, but I think it's cool you enjoy the botany part of hiking.