OUR
COMMENTS - July, 2003
Weather, Working in the Forest, and Another Workshop
It's Always About The Weather
When you live in the mountains, and close to the ocean, weather is always a topic of conversation and a daily concern. Visitors to these pages may have noticed that the weather receives a fair amount of comment in each of the "Owner's Comments" columns. In the North Country, the weather is a significant part of each day for us as we live much closer to nature and its patterns than does the average city or suburban dweller. Weather often determines our daily activities, in each of the four seasons that all seem to offer extremes not seen in the more southerly parts of the country. The last posting of this page occurred in February during a very cold and snow filled winter. Yet, a complete turn-around came in early March as the snow cover became quite soft and mushy in the early warm March days. We even experienced a day of 90 degrees in April, though not to be followed again until the end of June. We usually still have some snow cover until the first days of May. The spring was long, cool, and wet and we are likely to have a short summer season here. Our four seasons are not usually divided equally into three month segments. Winter usually picks up a month or so from both spring and fall, and one or both of those seasons grab a few weeks from the summer season. Each year is a new adjustment in the seasons, however winter always seems to get the most days. That is why we love it here.
Working in the Forest
The New Hampshire State Nursery was the source of this year's planting of wildlife beneficial plants in our forest and the spring planting has now become a traditional annual event. Hardy rugosa rose was added to the patch of Virginia rose already well established west of the cottage. The thick patch of roses are already providing rose-hips for birds and other wildlife. Heavy snow usually covers all but the tallest branches by late January, but a good supply of late fall and early spring food is provided by the roses. I planted several winterberry holly plants up along the wetland adjacent to the viewing rock and small meadow and they seem to be responding well, but will require a few years growth before they are of benefit to wildlife. I also planted a third grove of northern white cedar along the edge of the wetlands, as the plantings established at the stream inlet and outlet three years ago seem to be thriving. Cedars are slow growing and will not be a significant addition to the wetland during my lifetime, but will certainly benefit deer and moose after my passing. I try to keep my manipulation of the forest to a minimum and introduce native New Hampshire plants that, though not currently present, fill an appropriate niche in the forest. I experiment a little more in the area around our cottage and have introduced a few plants that would not typically be found in the forests of the Shelburne valley, but will be a great aid to the wildlife that is native.
A
little trail work was done in early summer, ahead of the bugs, and I have
been pulling raspberry all spring and summer long. Raspberry is the first
plant to spring up whenever there is a disturbance in the forest and provides
fruit for many birds and animals when it is in full sun. When the forest
canopy begins to close in, as is happening in First Mountain Forest, the
plants still produce many brambles, but little fruit. I am trying to
eliminate raspberry in many areas of the forest, particularly along trails
near the cottage, so that more woodland wildflowers and other herbaceous
plants, such as the trillium to the right, can better establish themselves.
I still leave small patches of the raspberry thickets where the sun is
beneficial, as a gift to the black bears who used to roll in the middle of
the patches that clogged the old skidder roads. The current logging east
and west of our forest ought to create significant new patches of raspberry
there.
I moved many of the softwoods from the power-line easement to more appropriate spots in our forest where they can grow to maturity and also transplanted several red and white pines and white spruces to our Maine home. I then planted a grove of twenty-five NH State Nursery Christmas Tree Sampler trees in a portion of the easement and will watch the growth of the five different species to see which is best adapted to the site, though the native white spruce already present seems to have thrived in that lichen covered, sandy soil. With the suppression of hardwoods and transplanting of softwoods, most of the 750' easement is now covered in lowbush blueberries that have begun to really respond to the open sun and lack of tree competition. I expect an even bigger crop of blue-berries this summer. Since PSNH will not allow forest to grow there, I will make the best of it.
An AMC Workshop at First Mountain
The First Mountain Forest hosted an Appalachian Mountain Club
Trail Design & Layout Course at the end of June this summer. The attendees
spent a Saturday receiving instruction at the AMC's Camp Dodge Volunteer
Center north of Pinkham Notch, then came out to First Mountain on Sunday
for some practical work in our forest. AMC White Mountains Trails Supervisor
Andrew Norkin and Mike Cooper, a trail design consultant from Maine, lead
the workshop. Mike is just finishing design work on the new Grafton Notch
Loop Trail for the AMC, State of Maine, and other partners. During
the Camp Dodge classroom session, Mike demonstrated some of the various tools
used for trail design and layout and then demonstrated the specifics of using
a clinometer at First Mountain, where we all began hands-on work laying out
a trail.
The clinometer allows you to measure the percentage of slope or degree of angle for a given section of terrain, and along with compass and topographic map, allows the trail designer to lay a drift-line along a proposed route that meets specific criteria for the intended use of the trail. A hiking trail, cross-country ski trail, mountain bike trail and other special use trails, all have different design criteria to meet the intended user's needs. The instructors had prepared a number of design scenarios for a practical exercise and the two teams chose one scenario for a challenging hiking trail and another for a community cross-country-ski and bike trail. We then set two initial control points, one at the First Mountain Cottage trailhead and the other at Hidden Cliffs in the southeast portion of the property.
Our first step was to walk between the two initial control points while examining the terrain in between, looking for desirable natural features to include as additional control points, and also identifying likely routes that would fall within the design criteria. We determined during the initial exploration that we did not have enough time to reach and examine the final control point at Hidden Ledges and adjusted the control point to a lower terrain feature.
If you look at the topographic map for
First Mountain, you can see that designing a challenging hiking trail would
not require much effort. A cross country ski/ bike trail with
limited grades and wide turns would be a real challenge however, and as one
team member had to leave early, we joined existing teams and all worked on
the one scenario to design a proposed ski/bike trail. We also found, after
applying the clinometer to a few potential routes, that we would have to
adjust our final control point to be the wetland in the flat pan perched
high above First Mountain's cottage. I didn't believe it would be possible
to lay out a trail to the wetland that met the strict guidelines for maximum
sustained grades between 8% to 12% for a slope length under 300', with
single climbs of up to 70' at 18% grade, all with recovery grades between
slopes, and also meet additional strict criteria for turning radius and width
and other design considerations. The front of the First Mountain Forest tract
is only 700' to 800' wide at the low elevation where the trail would be placed
and does not provide a lot of room for gradual switchbacking.
Andrew and Mike helped us get started and then the participants gamely laid out a proposed trail that pushed those design limits to the maximum, but resulted in a nice sweeping ski/bike route all the way up to the open viewpoint at the edge of the wetland. The route would require a fair amount of heavy rock and tree removal to bring it up to the standards of a community ski trail, but I intend to begin work by hand this fall to develop the route first as a hiking trail and gradually expand it into a smaller and narrower private ski trail. We already have a rough quarter-mile ski loop using the gentle "Harry's Loop" near the cottage and the addition of this route will likely allow expansion to at least a mile of good backcountry skiing with challenging, but not death defying hills. The opportunity is also there now to continue the new loop around the perimeter of the wetland and to create one or two "stacked loops" above the wetland. The workshop provided an opportunity for everyone to learn a lot, including myself, and also benefitted future trail opportunities in First Mountain Forest.
Larry
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