Rick Sharpe testing pH at Cathedral State Park

 

Good Start to a Great Week

We got off to a great start yesterday on the first leg of our project with our stop to Cathedral Forest, one of the few truly virgin forests left to visit. Our teachers have done an excellent job depicting the area and assessing the environment. Take a look at their posts and pictures of the forest by clicking on the links to their individual sites to the right of this blog.

Great start to the timber and rail project trip

Our group departed the Cabell County Schools Central Office promptly as scheduled at 9 am on July 15 stopping at Go-Mart to fill the rental vans with fossil fuel.  Our drive took us to Bridgeport for lunch at several of the many fast food locations there.  We got back in the road an hour after stopping, anxious to get to our first destination, Cathedral State Park                       . 

We arrived at Cathedral at 2 pm, surprised to find the parking lot full.  On previous visits to the area, I have been the only car in the parking lot.  Turns out that a church group was having a picnic at one of the shelters there. 

Walking around the area allowed us to observe a virgin hemlock forest like it would have been before settlers entered the area.  The soil was typical of a hemlock forest being spongy and damp with a thick litter of needles.  In measuring the pH of the soil, it was determined to range from 3.5 to 4.5 depending on location.  Many groups found that tests done lower in the valley were higher pH which they found surprising.  They speculated that the low pH is due to the tannic acid in the soil from the hemlock trees.  In addition, the stream in the area was dark from the tannin seeping in from the soil.  These tannins in the hemlock trees are the reason why hemlock was called “leatherwood” in past generations since hemlock bark was used in the tanning process.

Measures of some of the larger hemlock trees showed trunk diameter of 4 to 5 feet.  Determining the height and girth of the trees allowed the volume of lumber to be estimated and the potential market value of the tree to be determined.  Some large hemlock trees had potential values in the thousands of dollars!

We left Cathedral State Park at 4:30 for the hour-long drive along curvy roads to Elkins were we checked in at the Hampton Inn before going to dinner at the Western Steer. 

After dinner, everyone spent time in the motel lobby preparing blogs for their students describing the educational impact of their day.  A torrential rain blew in as we were finished the blogs.  We were happy to not be in the forest when the rain came up or perhaps worse, driving on the mountain roads.  Everyone is looking forward to the visits at forest products manufacturing facilities in the Elkins area this week.

View Larger Map

Waypoints for stops on next week's trip

If you have a GPS unit, whether a car mount Garmin Nuvi or a handheld GPS receiver, you can download the GPX file with the locations of our stops and save them to your GPS with a common USB cable.
If you have Google Earth on your Samsung Galaxy Tab, you should be able to access this file on the tablet as well.
This GPX file has the coordinates for most of the places we will be stopping on the trip.

The time for departure is nearly upon us

On Sunday morning we will be pulling out of the Cabell County Central Office parking lot a little after 8:30 am on our way to the first stop of the trip, Cathedral State Park.

The itinerary has been updated, hopefully for the last time.  A link to the final itinerary is in the links section of this blog.

By noon on Saturday, I hope to have a gpx file available from this blog that has the locations of stops on the trip.  If you have a GPS unit, you can download this file to the GPS as waypoints and can find your way to all of the places we visit.

Please note some important announcements in previous blog entries that some of the places we will visit require long trousers and closed toe shoes.  Also, please note that our first meal on Sunday afternoon will be on your own in the Bridgeport area.  We will be picking up most meals directly but in this instance we will be breaking up to speed lunch to get us to Cathedral State Park more quickly giving us more time to observe the virgin forest there.


Don't forget how many paces you need to take to measure 66 feet.  We calibrated ourselves when we were in Ritter Park on April 21.  To do the tree estimates and board feet calculations, you will need to pace off 66 feet from the base of the tree.  For me, that distance is 29 paces at a brisk natural gait.  Your pace will certainly be different.

Please check back with this blog frequently for updates.

JUNE 29th DERECHO and it's Effect on Timber. 

The recent storms in our area have really got me thinking about the forest industry. The storm is being called a Derecho defined as “a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that this Derecho  “formed in northwest Indiana and began carving a path of destruction over 600 miles long. Winds approaching 100 miles per hour were reported during the most intense part of the event (between Fort Wayne, IN and Columbus, OH.)” You can actually see the storm move across the eastern US in this 15 second timelase clip provided by NOAA.

This has me thinking about all the downed trees in our area. Im adding a video clip from WSAZ news below. It is kind of long but I want to point out a few important sections. Notice from 1:05 - 1:30, and again at 3:25, you can hear and see WSAZ’s Jessica Ralston and Bill Murray talk about some of the damage in the Huntington Tri-State area.  At around 1:25 you can see workers loading downed branches into a massive wood chipper similar to the one on the right.
WSAZ NewsChannel 3 
 
I can’t help but to think about what an enormous waist this is. I realize that restoring power is the first priority, and that may mean that some small trees and downed limbs must be quickly cleared. Im not even suggesting that things should have been done differently. But I also realize that this storm effected an extremely wide area, over 600 miles long. So what happens to these trees? Can they be harvested and used? I know in our area, three that are covering the road ways are normally cut and placed on the side of the road. Within an hour or so, someone will stop and gather the wood to burn in a wood burning stove, etc. But what about all the trees and limbs that are “off the beaten path?”  Does this simply begin the natural decomposition process for all the downed limbs and trees? We all realize that a storm such as this has an enormous economic impact. But is the forest industry also economically impacted?

If anyone has insight on this, please feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Preparing for the summer trip

We will soon be leaving for our week-long trip across the state to locations of importance to the timber and rail industries. There are couple of points that I need to remind you about:
·         Several of the manufacturing sites we will visit require long pants and closed toe shoes. Please don’t forget to pack these items.
·         Some sites require protective eyewear (safety glasses) and hearing protection (ear plugs). These will be provided for you. If you have the hardhat from last summer, please bring it with you. If you were not part of last summer’s trip, a loaner hardhat can be provided for you if needed.
·         If the past three weeks are any indication, we can expect hot weather for our trip. You may want to bring a water bottle and cool clothing for the days that we are not in a plant requiring long pants.
·         There is a list of things to bring in the “Expectations” document that you were given at our first class meeting last winter. Here are some things that you will want to make sure to not forget:

§  Samsung Galaxy Tab Computer

§  Vernier LabQuest Pro & water quality probes

§  Tree identification books

§  Tape Measure

§  Shorts and long pants

§  Sweatshirts, Columbia type shirts, changes of socks, hat or cap

§  Hiking shoes/boots for walking on trails and visiting manufacturing plants

§  Light rain jacket (Frog Toggs or Dry Ducks are great)

§  Windbreaker

§  Sunglasses

§  Hardhat

§  Refillable water bottle

§  Insect spray, sunscreen

§  Toiletries and medications

§  Phone card if you wish to call home

§  Cash for incidental meals and snacks or souvenirs

§  Chargers and connection cables for electronics

·         As in prior years, some of the places we will visit are in remote locations. Suitable bathroom facilities may be scarce. Please (as much as possible under the circumstances) be patient.
·         Please remember that there are four requirements you need to complete before I can process your stipend for the summer project:

1.       Local tree guide (including photos and descriptions of at least 12 tree species) that your students can use. This may be best done on a tab of your blog although you may have other ways as well.

2.       Narrative and photos on the determination of board feet from a standing tree

3.       Assessment of water quality on 4 Pole Creek including data tables

4.      Three professional quality lesson plans using the provided lesson plan format or another comparable layout. Lesson plans should be in Microsoft Word format and sent to Steve via email. They should also be provided on a link from your blog page and available to visitors to your blog. You may find that it is convenient to upload your lesson plans to Dropbox, SugarSync, Amazon Cloud Storage, Box.net, or ShareSend.

 Please take time to review the itinerary in our shared Dropbox space. Especially note that we are meeting in the parking lot of the Cabell County Central Office at 8:30 am on Sunday, July 15. We will depart promptly as scheduled.

I can’t wait to get started on our culminating experience from the Forestry and Rail Transport project. Seeing many of the things that we have discussed in class will give you the tools to make your lessons come to life for your students.