Kellie digs through thick underbrush to find acid soil at Gaudineer Knob.

 

Another virgin forest, some water testing, and a train ride!

We started out bright and early Thursday morning with a trip to Gaudineer Knob, the second of the two "virgin forests" in West Virginia. Unlike the virgin hemlock forest we saw at Cathedral on Sunday, Gaudineer is recognized as a virgin spruce forest. The underbrush of this forest was somewhat different as well, with much greater biodiversity including the ever-loving mosses, an array of fungal species, and the home of our very own "Cheat Mountain Salamander", found only at this location in the whole world. This salamander was discovered and named by Marshall University's very own Dr. N. Bayard Green in 1938.

After a great picnic lunch, courtesy of Annette & Karen, we were off to Durbin, WV to ride the famous Durbin Rocket Train, but not before making another stop along the Greenbrier River for some more water testing (we will have thee samples of the river miles apart to compare when we are done). Take a look at our teacher blogs on the right side of this blog to see their results. At 2:30 we boarded the Durbin Rocket for a leisurely train ride along the beautiful Greenbrier River. The "ROCKET" is a Climax type train engine that was different from the Shay engine that we road yesterday at Cass. The Climax engine was built for power rather than speed and was gear-driven with a drive shaft similar to what you see on an automobile. Even now, at my age, I still get goose-bumps hearing that haunting train whistle echoing through the valley.
After another long, but productive day, we stoped for dinner at Bob Evans and then off to our rooms at the Holiday Inn Express in Lewisburg. Tomorrow we complete the last leg of our project.



View Larger Map

Cass Scenic Railroad

Wednesday started off well, checking out of our home for the past few days, the Elkins Hampton Inn.  We headed south on US 219 for Cass, stopping at the Greenbank Observatory for a break and visit to the displays.  We were at the Cass Scenic Railroad a little after 10 am, testing the water in the Greenbrier River.  We were surprised by the low dissolved oxygen content of the water which impacted the overall water quality assessment.  Although specific water quality measures varied from each group’s samples, the low dissolved oxygen was consistent across all groups’ data. 

By 11:30 we had our lunches on the train to Bald Knob, propelled by the Number 11 Shay engine.  The three hour ride over the 11 miles was beautiful and interesting.  We passed from the hemlock/hardwood forests around the town of Cass at 2450 feet above sea level, through the basswood, cherry and oak forests to the elevation of 4842 at Bald Knob where red spruce and mountain ash dominate the landscape.  Although the spruce forests at Bald Knob are likely tertiary growth, the dense forests crowd out underbrush and small herbaceous plants making a dark, open forest floor.  The stop at Bald Knob allowed our group to make comparisons to observations of Cathedral State Park and set up our visit on Thursday to the virgin spruce forest on Gaudineer Knob.

The ride back down the mountain was much faster, especially since there was no stop at Whitaker Station as in the trip up.  Our train was back in the station by 5 pm when we drove to our restaurant Foxfire Grill at the Snowshoe Resort.  After getting our fill of great food, we went down the mountain to our motel, the Snowshoe Resort.

The resort got mixed reviews from our group.  While the location is accessible and convenient, there was no Internet in the room, no cell service due to Greenbank’s blackout, no television because of a small localized storm, the storm also resulted in closing the small indoor pool.

View Larger Map

Wood Manufacturing Industries in Historic Beverly, WV

After a breakfast of fresh fruit, bagel breakfast sandwiches and several cups of tea, our group left the Hampton Inn for the historic depot in Elkins.  The old structures have been nicely restored and make a great place to visit and learn about the railroad history of the area.

From there, we drove to Beverly and toured the Colonial Millworks factory.  They make a variety of milled wood products including many trim and specialty items for Bruce (Armstrong) Flooring.  We were impressed with the efficiency of the operation so that no wood or labor is wasted.  Colonial Millworks produces millwork from all manner of wood species including native West Virginia trees but also many exotic Asian, South American and African species.  The one thing that I found particularly impressive is that a stained board gets a two coats of finish with sanding between coats in 10 to 23 seconds!  At the end of that time, the finished board can be stacked and ready for distribution to retailers.  The high tech finish is dried with a ultraviolet light and makes a highly durable finish.




Milling at Colonial Millworks from Steve Beckelhimer on Vimeo.

Lunch was at the Beverly Historical Society Museum where the coordinator, Terry Hackney, gave us an interesting and informative tour of the displays.  We were also joined by the principal of Beverly Elementary School, Mr. Paul Zickefoose, who helped us make arrangements for our visits in Beverly.  The buildings in Beverly date back to the late 1700s and are well documented by signage throughout the town.

After lunch, we toured the manufacturing facilities at Bruce Hardwood Flooring (Armstrong) where we saw the production of solid hardwood flooring on a huge scale.  The tour took us through areas where the incoming wood is kiln dried then sawed, planed, milled, sanded, stained and finished.  Although the operation is highly efficient and mechanized, there is a great deal of human interaction with the product.  The measures in place to assure quality, productivity and safely were quite impressive.  As in other wood products facilities we have visited this week, there is a great deal of pride among employees in the West Virginia products being distributed across the country.  While the facility at Bruce was similar to other manufacturing sites in Randolph County, the difference is scale.  Bruce Hardwood Flooring has hundreds of employees and millions of annual board feet in production.  They are a huge operation.  We noted that much of the waste wood material is used at fuel the boilers for the kilns but the remaining waste wood is shipped to Hamer Pellet Fuel to be made into pellets for wood stoves.

On leaving Beverly, we came back to Elkins for dinner at Applebee’s then to the Hampton Inn for our guest speaker, Luanna Moore. Ms. Moore, West Virginia's 2012 Teacher of the Year, gave the timber and rail group lessons on the Appalachian dulcimer. While our team isn't the most musically talented, we made up for it with our enthusiasm.  We played many traditional favorites like Will the Circle be Unbroken, Wildwood Flower and You are My Sunshine.  It was great fun but by the time it was 10 pm, everyone was ready to turn in.

Several of us ran out afterward to stock up on provisions for the Wednesday trip to Cass Scenic Railroad and Thursday's drive up Gaudineer Knob.   It has been a long but productive and educational day.

View Larger Map

Hamer Pellets in 30 seconds!

Forest Products Industries in Elkins, WV

After arising at the Hampton Inn in Elkins, the group boarded the vans for Hamer Pellet Fuel to see wood waste being converted to pellets that are burned in wood heat stoves.  We were impressed that the WV based company took waste sawdust and chips from sawmills and wood manufacturing and converted into useful product.

Hamer mixes sawdust from a variety of hardwood species and sends it to a high BTU drier that is fueled by the very sawdust that it processes.  The dried sawdust gets heated with a small amount of vegetable oil and sent to an extruder where the pellets are formed.  These pellets are cooled and sent to an automated system that fills and seals bags before stacking on pallets with a robotic arm and wrapping with a protective plastic.

A nice lunch of Subway sandwiches at Riverbend Park in Elkins allowed everyone to get some tree identification practice in and to spend some time in the outdoors on a beautiful summer day.

After lunch, we went to Wilson Lumber Company where we saw rough sawn lumber get graded, kiln dried and planed in preparation for shipment to millwork shops.  We were impressed with the efficiency of the operation and the professionalism of the employees.  The kilns are fueled by sawdust, largely from the planers on the site.  We were shown how the moisture content of wood is determined and how the board footage is estimated quickly.

From there, we went to Wilson Quality Millwork where the kiln dried lumber is turned into molding and specialty products.  Wilson sells stock styles of molding or can make custom designs in quantities as large or small as the customer desires.

After a dinner at Bob Evans, we heard from our speaker, Mr. Robert Whitshell, a local historian.  His interesting talk reiterated many of the concepts from our spring course and made our group more aware of the history of forests in Randolph County as well as in Appalachia as a whole.

View Larger Map

Rick Sharpe testing pH at Cathedral State Park