What has a shelter seen?

[Gambit McCrae]

As i look back thru completions, and think about the dates associated with the shelters. Just take "campbell shelter", 1989. I was 1 year old. Are the people that constructed that shelter still alive? For 27 years folks have been coming by that shelter, what has been the worst day for that shelter? The best? Whats the craziest thing thing that shelter has seen, the biggest laugh, the loughdest snoring, the biggest party!!! The hardest night. I dont mean to pick this shelter outt of any other, it was just on the data page open on my book. Trying to spark imaginations here.

[Pringles]

I've wondered about what the tree at Bly Gap has seen. Being right by the first (or last) state crossing, I imagine it's had its fair share of celebrations.

[Dogwood]

I've considered what trees have seen, what they know, and what they can share, and that's a living entity. Sleeping in a grove of Giant Redwoods that are 1800+ yrs old, under a 1500 yr old Ancient Western Juniper w/ a 18 ft diam, or nestled under a 2000+ yr old Bristlecone Pine, 500 yr old oak, forest of old growth/virgin 150 ft+ Eastern Hemlock, 500 yr old Sugar Pine, or massive old growth grove of Tulip(Lirondendron tulipifera) trees soaring 150 ft with their stout trunks I can't help but see humanity as only part of the world in a very much larger interconnected ecosystem. The life time scales of humans is only a fart in the wind compared to these organisms.

[Traillium]

I've considered what trees have seen, what they know, and what they can share, and that's a living entity. Sleeping in a grove of Giant Redwoods that are 1800+ yrs old, under a 1500 yr old Ancient Western Juniper w/ a 18 ft diam, or nestled under a 2000+ yr old Bristlecone Pine, 500 yr old oak, forest of old growth/virgin 150 ft+ Eastern Hemlock, 500 yr old Sugar Pine, or massive old growth grove of Tulip(Lirondendron tulipifera) trees soaring 150 ft with their stout trunks I can't help but see humanity as only part of the world in a very much larger interconnected ecosystem. The life time scales of humans is only a fart in the wind compared to these organisms.

To this poetry, I'll add camping right above a thousand-year-old Thuja occidentalis (Arbor vitae, or what we 'properly' call White Cedar) hanging with wonderful determination out of a crack in the Niagara Escarpment above Georgian Bay. My resoluteness to walk a few measly kilometres pales besides the resiliency of this small tree …


Bruce Traillium, brucetraillium.wordpress.com

[Dogwood]

Didn't know Thuja occidentalis had such lifespans. Thx for sharing. Wow, what a sight of that tree compared to what we know when Arborvitae is tightly clipped into 10 ft high 3 ft wide hedges. Any pics?

[Ktaadn]

I love trees. Like, really LOVE trees, but I thought this thread was going to be all about orgies and bear attacks.

[Dogwood]

I love trees. Like, really LOVE trees, but I thought this thread was going to be all about orgies…

Well there were two times arriving at a AT shelter…..No I don't have any pics.

[Traillium]

Didn't know Thuja occidentalis had such lifespans. Thx for sharing. Wow, what a sight of that tree compared to what we know when Arborvitae is tightly clipped into 10 ft high 3 ft wide hedges. Any pics?

http://www.ancientforest.org/wp-cont...AncientOne.jpg

Doug Larson and his team have found even older (dead) Thuja trees. Near me in Mono Cliffs Park, he has found 800-year-old cedars about thumb-thickness. They're usually well down the cliffs and inaccessible except to climbers.



Bruce Traillium, brucetraillium.wordpress.com

[Odd Man Out]

When I go to an art gallery and look at a famous piece of art (such as this one from my trip to Italy last May), I don't think so much about what the art has seen over the years, but rather that I am having a shared experience with millions of people over hundreds of years. I suppose it is the same with a shelter. It is a reference point with which I can share an AT experience with thousands of people I've never met. Who needs the internet?

venus.jpg

[saltysack]

Lots of mice.....


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[rafe]

When I go to an art gallery and look at a famous piece of art (such as this one from my trip to Italy last May), I don't think so much about what the art has seen over the years, but rather that I am having a shared experience with millions of people over hundreds of years. I suppose it is the same with a shelter. It is a reference point with which I can share an AT experience with thousands of people I've never met. Who needs the internet?

venus.jpg

I've seen that painting twice now, at the Uffizi. First time (1973) it took my breath away. Second time (1999) it was behind a 2" thick pane of glass, and not quite as impressive.

Regarding the OP's question (shelters and their history) -- I though about that when I passed by Cuahgnawaga (sp?) shelter in Vermont, built ages ago and probably gone by now. It was amazingly tiny. A father and son duo were settled in for the evening, but I didn't stay. A bit of googling says the shelter was built in 1931.

[Christoph]

Here's a thread about the Wapiti Shelter I found interesting.
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...Wapiti-Shelter
Naturally I had done a little research a long time ago and knew about it when I tried my thru. What a beautiful area though.

[Trailweaver]

Well, I know that Stover Creek Shelter very nearly saw a shelter fire one night when my stove malfunctioned and blazed up to the roof. I was alone, it was very cold, and I was terrified that I'd set the whole surrounding area ablaze and it would be all my fault and people on Whiteblaze would find out and they would all hate me forever and then it would make the news too, and people in other states would also hate me. . .

[Pringles]

Quite some time ago, Baltimore Jack commented that if people take a picture of their tent at a shelter area, other hikers will look at it and say, "that's nice." But if other hikers see a picture of the shelter, they tell a story about who was there the night they were there, and the fire they had and generally tell a tale. It was a nice comment, sort of the inverse of the OP thought.

[Another Kevin]

http://www.ancientforest.org/wp-cont...AncientOne.jpg

Doug Larson and his team have found even older (dead) Thuja trees. Near me in Mono Cliffs Park, he has found 800-year-old cedars about thumb-thickness. They're usually well down the cliffs and inaccessible except to climbers.

Cool! Just last weekend, I was up on the Schoharie escarpment, and got to see the ancient trees of http://www.ancientforests.us/articles/Science310.pdf. The Quercus prinus and Junipera virginiana that frame the lovely view in the first picture may well have been already growing on that cliff when Columbus stepped off the boat. The "Methuselah red cedar", known to be at least 628 years old, is about 25 feet from the trail and just outside the border of the second picture. (Yes, those are blazes on either side of that crack, and yes, that scramble is every bit as steep as it looks. I didn't get a closeup look at Methuselah.)

[Traillium]

Cool! Just last weekend, I was up on the Schoharie escarpment, and got to see the ancient trees of http://www.ancientforests.us/articles/Science310.pdf. The Quercus prinus and Junipera virginiana that frame the lovely view in the first picture may well have been already growing on that cliff when Columbus stepped off the boat. The "Methuselah red cedar", known to be at least 628 years old, is about 25 feet from the trail and just outside the border of the second picture. (Yes, those are blazes on either side of that crack, and yes, that scramble is every bit as steep as it looks. I didn't get a closeup look at Methuselah.)

Great stuff, eh! I'm humbled by various aspects of this story. Firstly, I've hiked and taught along the cliffs in Mono Cliffs Park where some of our old cedars were first found — and I had no idea of their story. What other such marvels exist and subsist that we are overlooking? Secondly, the real value of these ancient trees — and their habitats — is becoming clearer every year. I have some considerable duty to educate people about that.


Bruce Traillium, brucetraillium.wordpress.com

[Another Kevin]

Great stuff, eh! I'm humbled by various aspects of this story. Firstly, I've hiked and taught along the cliffs in Mono Cliffs Park where some of our old cedars were first found — and I had no idea of their story. What other such marvels exist and subsist that we are overlooking? Secondly, the real value of these ancient trees — and their habitats — is becoming clearer every year. I have some considerable duty to educate people about that.

I always marvel at the diversity of ecozones we have in this part of the world. On the same trip, in a sheltered and deeply shaded gorge adjacent to that cliff, I noticed a few patches of a community that looked to be Abies balsamea, Picea rubens, Betula papyrifera, and a well-developed layer of bryophytes, all growing about two thousand feet lower elevation than where I'd expect to see taiga. I think it's a little tract of ice cave talus. Finding Gaultheria hispidula would prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt, but the limestone soil is far too alkaline to support it, I suspect. I was rather surprised to see the balsam-and-spruce rooted in that stuff, to tell the truth.

[Tuckahoe]

When I go to an art gallery and look at a famous piece of art (such as this one from my trip to Italy last May), I don't think so much about what the art has seen over the years, but rather that I am having a shared experience with millions of people over hundreds of years. I suppose it is the same with a shelter. It is a reference point with which I can share an AT experience with thousands of people I've never met. Who needs the internet?

venus.jpg

I felt much the same standing along the Severn River and looking at the Iron Bridge
IMG_20160827_143819309_HDR.jpg

It is a powerful experience to stand before something that you have only ever read about or seen in pictures, and to finally see it with your own eyes and touch it with your own hands.

When on the trail and stopping by a shelter, I all too often find myself reading all the graffiti and wondering about those that left their marks -- what's happened to them since they passed by that spot and where are they now