Wasilik Poplar Cut Down?

[JAK]

I wonder if you could just rope off the whole area and let it fall a natural death?

[take-a-knee]

I would have to assume that it just died of old age. All trees do that, eventually....

Oh no, that's just too simple of an answer, it just HAS to be somebody's fault.

[JAK]

I like the site of old paper birch trees off in a clearing deep in the woods, usually on old reclaimed farm land, when they start falling apart. Whole branches fall off, but they keep raising up new shoots. They are only supposed to be short lived pioneer trees, but they don't go easy. What I rarely see is a big paper birch big enough and in good enough shape to build a birch canoe out of. I'm sort of guessing they might have been nurtured some, left alone until big enough to take the bark from. Not sure. Nut trees were also semi-cultivated in this way I think. We used to have alot of Butternut as an important food source, but they were valued for furniture making and pretty much exterminated.

[JAK]

Most human cultures by their nature are a little too quick with an axe.
This time of year I get an itching to plant, but aslo tend to cut away.
I think we all need to work at not getting a little too axe happy.

Phase II of the Fundy Trail Parkway is just about complete. It's a pretty ugly sight.
People tried to tell them not to cut so many trees down, to maybe leave a few.
But you hire people that cut trees for a living, and that's just what they'll do.

http://www.fundytrailparkway.com/
Oldest undeveloped coastline between Florida Keys and Newfoundland.
SEE IT. WALK IT. BIKE IT. DRIVE IT. BUT MOST OF ALL DEVELOP IT.

[Mocs123]

I went to see this tree last year and don't understand why anything needs to be done to it. They might take the trail sign down and quit maintaining the trail, but as someone mentioned before, there are millions of dead trees in our forests, and I walk under hundreds of them every time I do a section of the AT, I think would be an absurd waste of money to cut it down.

BTW: I thought it was a really cool blue blaze even if the tree was dead.

[TrippinBTM]

http://www.fundytrailparkway.com/
Oldest undeveloped coastline between Florida Keys and Newfoundland.
SEE IT. WALK IT. BIKE IT. DRIVE IT. BUT MOST OF ALL DEVELOP IT.

How can they call it undeveloped if they built a paved road through it? Just like the American Park System, "developing" our natural treasures. (Edward Abbey's book "Desert Solitaire" and Arches N.P. springs to mind).

[Pootz]

I have been to see the Wasilik Poplar a couple times. During my thru hike I took many side trails to see tree/views/whatever. There are lots of great thing just off the AT. Never understood the "I am not hiking any additional miles approach" to thru hiking.

If you like trees you owe it to your self to go out west and see the Redwoods and Sequoia's. They are unbelievable. I was out there last summer for 3 weeks to do the JMT and got hurt and got off the trail. The extra days were spent touring around seeing trees, glad I did not miss seeing them.

[awinita]

For those of you who don't know about the Wasilik Poplar, it is rumored to be the second largest poplar tree in the nation. It is a lonely reminder of the once magnificent forests that once covered the US from the East Coast to the midwest, before logging altered over 99% of all forests in the area. It is located on a blue-blaze trail off the AT at Rock Gap in North Carolina.

I have heard from a highly reliable source that land management officials are considering cutting it down, for liability issues.

I was told, and have noticed myself, that it is dying. The cause is unknown, but some scientists reportedly say it is because of the extremely high amount of visitor traffic at its base, compacting soil around the roots, carving into it, and actually stripping its bark intentionally for some reason. Who knows, maybe it is just old and tired (and lonely). It was topped by Hurrican Opal some years ago.

So now they are afriad that it may drop its branches and kill people.

Has anyone else heard about this?

Do you think they should cut it down?

Just wanted to update. The trail is no longer marked but still there. My son and I were camping at Standing Indian and hiking several trails . He wanted to see a tree like the ones in the "Valley of the Giants in north GA" (trail in the cooper creek area with and uncut forest). We decided to hike to the Wasilik Poplar and the sign is gone. I did not hike down to see if the tree was still there or not, but the trail marker has been removed as of 6/1/2010. If the tree is in as bad a condition as mentioned it may be better for the tree for everyone to forget and leave it alone. There is a valley full of these type trees maybe not as big or old but last time I camped/hiked there I counted over 30 more than 20 ft around and many Hickory and Oak almost as large in the Cooper creek area of ga.

[awinita]

I agree with you SGT. I remember hiking to Clingmans Dome as a child of only 5-6 years old . We went there every summer while camping somewhere in the Smokey's but after my Father passed in 1988 I didn't hike there for almost 10 years until, Repeating what my father shared with me I wanted to take my son there to hike in the Balsam Forrest above 6000 ft. I stood there and cried for over 10 minutes and had to explain to my 4 year old son the the forest I had brought him to see was now dead and gone. It only lives now in my heart and memories. Much like many forest my Father hiked with me in and still I find new ones to hike with my son. I know I cant bring the old ones back but time must continue forward and change. Heaven to me is waking up at dawn, above 6000ft drinking my Coffee and smoking my pipe sending my payers to my ancestors and looking DOWN on the Clouds.

[GGS2]

Concening the oldest, largest tree question, I know that the krumholtz forests in places like Labrador, in the Torngats, are both big and old. Seems funny for a tree that never pokes its head above ground level, but it fills whole gullies and ravines, and I've heard that the same tree can run for many miles. Of course it takes centuries to grow that way.

Another very old forest is on the face of the Niagara Escarpment. Again, I don't have the ages, but they rival some of the bristle cone pines out west, if I recall correctly. This one is very fragile, and in danger from rock climbers in some areas. These are stunted and small trees, but very old and very successful in their niches.

A funny krumholtz story. A party was traversing the coastal ridge line in Labrador, when suddenly one person disappeared. It took a while before he was located, deep down a gully like a crevass. Everyone else had just walked over the treetops, but he had missed a step, and plunged down to the bottom of the forest or tree. Took a bit of doing to get him back out, but he was fine but for some scratches.

[TIDE-HSV]

"Krummholz" exists everywhere in mountains just at tree line. In German, it just means "crooked" or "gnarled" wood. It's a natural adaptive reaction to extremely harsh conditions. I once had to rescue myself from a bad decision by walking on the bent tops of rhododendron to reach Dry Sluice Gap near Charlie's Bunion on the AT in the Smokies. I didn't have all that distance to fall, however. In fact, I ended up on the rhododendron because my perch on the scree slope had become too tenuous...

[Blue Jay]

Oh no, that's just too simple of an answer, it just HAS to be somebody's fault.

Yes, feral cats.

[mudhead]

I blame it on that "Girls Gone Wild With Chainsaws" movie.

Always sad when an old tree goes.

[Pedaling Fool]

You know Wookie, just yesterday I was looking at the forest as I stood there in the rain. I stood there for about half of an hour just marveling at how beautiful the place was in the rain with all the mist. And it was probably a place that most hikers would just consider a part of the green tunnel - a place to get to somewhere else like the falls or something. But I was just standing there waiting, and marveling at the big trees in that area. And I know they can't be any more than about 70 years old in that area - the Chestnuts once dominated that place. But after they left, something else took hold and made a new - yet different forest. Then I think of the top of the ridge where I was working the day before, pine trees dying up there from whatever it is killing them this time, but other plants and trees are making a new forest that will also someday take over. I read somewhere that the "balance of nature" is myth, that things always change and there is no way to really preserve something wild, just protect it. Then I thought of this post you made a few days ago.

I like this post best.


I personally would like to see it cut down so we can examine its rings...




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