I've been listening to and watching this gentleman for a while now, great commentary, I'm old now and for some reason I look at trees more, just the thought of some very old trees, their jagged bark and how they've stood for 100's of years as quiet witnesses to our growth and civilization. Thank you

Having moved to Connecticut in 2015, I learned about the damage done to the Cathedral Pines. Thinking little was left, I have not yet made my way to the preserve. This video has changed my mind! I will make the pilgrimage soon!

My dad and my brother and I went to go see the Cathedral Pines just after the tornado took most of them down. It was quite a shock considering we had no idea that this had happened. I do recall that even the trees left standing were some of the biggest pines and hemlocks I had ever seen. It was nice to see that some of them still remained, and now in this video that the survivors are still alive and growing. And that as expected the forest is recovering.

I remember hiking to Cathedral Pines in the early 1980s.I returned in 2016 and was happy to see some some of the impressively massive survivors.There is another area with really large White pines not too far away called Golds Pines.They aren’t as big as the old Cathedral pine grove but they are catching up.Ive also seen very impressive scattered specimens almost at Cathedral Pines level scattered in the forests of Northwest Connecticut.

Great video! I can only imagine the majesty of New England's pre-colonial forests.

There are some large pines in the Yale Forest in Eastford, CT. Not as large as The Cathedral Pines, but not too far behind. And growing. They grow downslope close to Bigelow Brook and beneath the hilltop above them, giving them protection from the Storm Winds that have devastated other stands in the Yale Forest and elsewhere.

Thank you! The added bonus is the wonderful wood thrush singing in the background!

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

:)

I was married in 1986 in the Cathedral of Pines right on the AT. There were also abundant giant hemlock trees in the stand, equally as magnificent . I hiked this area constantly in the 1980s, it was my favorite place. I was devastated when the tornado came through. My own town was heavily damaged by the storm, the greenhouse I was working in had the top taken off, trees in town were all twisted off . I remember the giant pile of logged salvaged trees in the field across the way when they were cleaning up the damage.

You have done such a beautiful job of describing and explaining this forest! Thank you.

They were not a virgin forest but a stand of pine uniquely sheltered on the northwest side of a hill until the storm came in a direction not seen in hundreds of years. I remember the canopy the most with the light being what you see in the giant redwood forests out west . It was magical.

I've been to almost every state park and hiked and never been here, it has been put on the top of my list for next Sundays hiking trip, thank you. And good video.

A good thing to see a new upload on this channel! Great informative video as always🌲🌳👊

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Peter, there will be more coming too.

I’d visit this spot just to see a second growth forest growing in a natural setting! Looks beautiful! Also, about the best trees being near the road I can believe it! When I was in Mohawk Trail State Forest you had to look up to truly appreciate the height of those pines!

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, most people never notice the heights of those pines. One of the Mohawk pines was taken down in 1994 to make a replacement mast for the schooner Ernestina, the official vessel of the state of MA. It was built in 1894.

@nicolasforestell3563

3 жыл бұрын

New England Forests I never knew that? How tall was the Pine they cut down?

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

I believe it was 135-140 feet tall. The state had planned to take down a number of surrounding trees to make room for the chosen pine to fall. A local logger, Norman Hicks, and another fellow heard of the plan and decided to jump the gun and drop the tree themselves, while sparing the surrounding trees. And that's just what they did! They dragged the log down to the meadow with a tractor. I wasn't there when they felled the tree, but I recall seeing the huge log up on cribbing in the meadow on a weekend visit; a team of workers prepped the mast there. The state thought they'd have to helicopter the log out of the meadow and across the Deerfield River to a place where it could be loaded onto a truck; this was because of the tight curves in the road out of the forest. But, in the end, they were able to truck it out. The mast was installed in the Ernestina, and it has since been replaced again (those pine masts only last about 12 years or so). You can find info about this online.

@kdavis4910

3 жыл бұрын

@@NewEnglandForests wow. I live in Southern Maine and to find old white pine we must head for the mountains. Lucky for me, I happen to live on a mountain ⛰ and across the street from a conservation area.

Nice, I have stood next to some mighty fine pine here in my home state of Maine. Yes, the Pine tree state... My ancestors were making tar in Conn. back in 1630s oh the trees that must have been....

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

Hi 44... yes, I’d give your right arm to be able to see those original forests!

Never ceases to amaze me just how tiny these giant trees look (in circumference/cir) w/o some1/thing next to it for scale! Throws my brain for a loop every time I see a tree that looks to be 1-2' cir & then narrator says it's 10-12'!!

I FOUND ANOTHER STAND OF CATHERDRAL PINES NORTH OF MAYFIELD NY TO THE EAST OF RT 30

Being that I live 40 minutes away, I really need to see this place for myself

Theres another area of cathedral pines in the town of Eustis, Maine. Mostly red pine if I recall. Right on Route 27.

I need to go hike here and experience this beauty.

Nice video. Unfortunately, any stand of timber that has that cathedral-like structure to it is in a precarious situation, on a human time scale. With nowhere left to grow but straight up, they get taller and taller, giving the wind that much more of a lever against the ground. They do bolster each other, but once that first tree falls, you get a domino effect.

@richtomlinson7090

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, and they do better when the area is left alone. They share the load against the wind. I remember someone telling me that many trees were taken for the construction of the Tappan Zee bridge for the muddy side of the bridge, and they drove them into the muck and capped them off with concrete for the side that didn't reach bedrock. The remaining trees were more vulnerable to storms and they started to get wiped out in greater numbers since then.

Thanks for posting!

Thank you .

I randomly found your channel and am starting my 3rd documentary. I find them to be very potent.

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

That’s great, thank you for watching! Ray

I made a video years ago of an enormous white pine here in Maine that I measured at 5.67 ft DBH and 128 ft tall with four stems. It would be a little bigger than that now.

New England forest and also Appalachian dwellers from Nova Scotia just north of Maine. Same type forests up here...

Just discovered your channel. A+++

Lovely video. ❤

Everything in nature works perfectly, yeah you might miss what was there before, but if it was done by nature, it’s part of the master plan. 🌲

Back in the 1970s, during my high school years, I used to ride my bicycle to Bantam Lake from Hartford, staying at the American Youth Hostel that was there on East Shore Road. I remember hearing about the Cathedral Pines at that time, and I always meant to go see them. Starting in 1980, I had friends with a family cottage in the woods of Cornwall, and we used to get there with the family about 3-4 times a year. We used to sit on the patio and consider an afternoon trip to see the pines, but laziness always won out. We'd surely check it out in the near future. After the 1989 tornado, which also knocked down some substantial trees near the cottage's property, we were all sorry that we hadn't visited while the pines were still there. The friend's cottage was sold about 6-7 years ago, and I have now retired and moved to the nearby town of Bethlehem CT., in Litchfield County near Cornwall. Last year I section hiked the Appalachian Trail in CT, which goes through Cornwall, and I kept thinking about the Cathedral Pines. It was almost as if Mother Nature was reminding us that these places ultimately aren't ours to save. It is commenadable that we set up parks to protect them, but we'd better be ready for them to keep changing the way that Nature intends them to. No more excuses! Gotta go walk through this place after seeing this wonderful video!

They're along the road to hide the clear cut areas. It fascinates and is vomit worthy to note that me that that's the only reasons trees along roadways like this survive is PR. The right thing to do it to leave fallen trees where they are in the forest. They provide for life and enrich the forest floor. I do feel sad when huge trees come down,. but if they are left alone, they leave that forest resilient! Resilience is exactly what must be protected. ALWAYS! The seed has fallen, the soil is being enriched and the new growth will harmonize with the old as it should. It's a beautiful and perfect system. Thank you for sharing.

A family friend had grown up near the Tappan Zee Bridge area and he learned that they used white pines from the Cathedral Pines preserve, for the mucky muddy side of the bridge, and they offered the people money for a certain number of the tall Pines and they put steel banding on them and drove them into the soft side of the famous bridge, but the other side was on bedrock. Well sometime after the big trees were cut there was a hurricane that damaged the remaining tree's, so this isn't the first time this has happened.

At least we can sleep knowing that it will be back in a few centuries, with many more like it.

Top video

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Jona !

Fantastici.

Cathedral shadows: White pine, root twined, sunshine dreams. Old growth forest Hope.

that hurts to see.

I owe myself a return trip.

I read in a book that trees like this will not be able to grow as high as they did before the industrial revolution. The excess nitrogen in the soil from human pollution causes them to grow rapidly, so quickly that their trunks can’t develop to support their weight, and they topple quite easily.

@richtomlinson7090

2 жыл бұрын

Another factor is that they need the support of their close neighbors.

A word of advice from Watertown / Rocky Hill: Don't let the developers in. 😉

I want to inform you that in Ukraine grow the tallest white pines in the world, the tallest 65 m (217 feet)! This pine is called the stratospheric giant. Measurements were made with a clinometer, and 40 pines exceed a height of 50 m (180 feet). I measured fallen oaks up to 140 feet high, and white pines 50 to 60 feet taller than them.

@NewEnglandForests

3 жыл бұрын

Hi, thanks for letting us know about your super pines... 200 feet or more is really very exceptional height for these trees. We'd be interested in learning details about your measurement method. Measurement experts here have experienced significant errors with the clinometer method, and now prefer highly accurate laser rangefinders.

@user-gx8wu3vs6q

3 жыл бұрын

@@NewEnglandForests Thanks for the answer. In the spring, the pines are measured with a laser and the exact height will be known, I also thought I made a mistake in the measurement, but later I measured several felled oaks with a tape next to a 217-foot pine, these oaks were 34-35 m high, and the white pine rises almost twice the forest. it is well visible from a great distance, it is really a super tall white pine. They were planted in our area about 150 years ago, it is very interesting that in Ukraine white pine feels no worse than in the United States.

@robertleverett4444

3 жыл бұрын

@@user-gx8wu3vs6q This is very exciting news! In 1995, we measured a white pine in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to 204 feet. We used a method called crown-point cross-triangulation to avoid typical clinometer-based errors. The tree subsequently lost its crown in an October storm I n 1996. I recommend using of a laser-based hypsometer to confirm the height of the pine in the spring. There are several brands that can do the job. One is the Nikon Forestry Pro. Another is the LTI TruPulse 200X. One critically important step is to insure that the laser's two-point routine is used to measure the pine's height, as opposed to the traditional 3-point routine. The former employs direct laser shots to the top and base with associated angles. The use of the trigonometric sine function then produces the vertical separation between top and base. The 3-point measurement uses the trunk to establish a level baseline and then takes angles to the top and base. The trigonometric tangent function is then employed. However, this method requires the top, end of the baseline, and base all be in vertical alignment. The methods are illustrated on the American Forests website www.americanforests.org. I would be happy to discuss this more with you, if you'd like. Bob Leverett, Cofounder, Native Tree Society

@user-gx8wu3vs6q

3 жыл бұрын

@@robertleverett4444 Bob Leverett, so I know of a 204-foot-tall Boogerman pine, in the spring the pine is measured by a Nikon Forestry Pro laser. We have a lot of tall pines in 2016. One of the white pines fell and when measured with tape it turned out to be 174 feet high and this pine was one of the lowest in the group of white pines and other pines are approaching 190-200 feet high! So in the spring the exact height of the trees will be known.

@robertleverett4444

3 жыл бұрын

@@user-gx8wu3vs6q This is really exciting information. Thanks so much. We look very forward to being kept up on future measurements. What kind of soil are the pines growing in? Do you know the average annual precipitation? Bob

Tornadoes happen regularly, and more so with time passing due to climate warming. But when that tornado happened, we weren't yet experiencing the actual recent upturn in the rate of greenhouse heating effect. What I mean to say here is that a tornado leveling down a "forest cathedral" might not have been such a tragic event when it happened if the conservancy of these New England forests had been done better in the past. As I mentioned, those are normal events (although tornadoes in Connecticut are relatively less frequent than in the South), and if such old-growth forests were as numerous as they were in the past, this wouldn't have been noticed. Worse, the fact that we were dealing with a relatively isolated stand, whose canopy was exposed to the strongest winds in altitude to a higher degree because of the difference in average free height, exposed the "cathedral pines" to a much greater risk of a chablis (the term for such a wind-caused tree leveling) precisely due to its relative separation from younger forest stands around these hills.

Doesn't the fact that the biggest trees today are NOT where the most fallen timbers are, suggest that the policy of leaving all the fallen timber to "nourish" the forest, in fact would seem to have impeded the new growth of the forest. I suggest that at least a large portion of the fallen timbers should have been harvested, leaving behind ample fallen timbers to nourish the environment would have been a more knowing way of allowing regeneration and the overall health of the forest.

@NewEnglandForests

Жыл бұрын

Capt’n, I don’t know on what data you base the idea that the biggest trees are not where the most fallen timbers are (that is, if you’re speaking in general terms); and I don’t really see the relevance. If you’re referring to the specific conditions at Cathedral Pines, I believe much of the blown down timber was removed; the areas where large logs are still present were intentionally left that way specifically to allow nature to take its course. It will take many years for those logs to disappear, but we have to realize that forests operate on a much longer time scale than humans do. As they break down, those logs build soil where eventually new trees will grow. There was no humus-type soil, only mineral “soil”, before plants came about and decomposed. In general, fallen leaves and woody material are decomposed and their constituent elements are recycled into new plants, trees, and even the animal species that consume them. Fallen logs of course take longer to break down than smaller material, but still eventually do. In the meantime, they retain moisture and provide micro habitats, and many are “nurse” logs that are important sites for seed germination. I always find it helpful to realize that the most spectacular forests that ever existed were the primeval forests that were here well before humans began to exploit them. They were managed only by the forces of nature, and they produced the most magnificent timber possible, as well as the cleanest water and air. That’s why so many people lament the near-total loss of such original forests, and long to see forests left alone to some day regain old growth characteristics.

Stupid - they say they choose to let natural processes take over but they don’t allow the fire to burn

What’s really sad is it was left laying on the ground-the explanation is pure bologna of the worst orders-only a government entity would come up with that nonsense…smh

Need to burn it every 5 years and it will come back

Should of milled all the downed timber then burn the land every few years and new pines will take over