James,
Nice work! I remember dropping a huge white pine at Lake Julian back in 1992. I "tape dropped" it to 125 feet with a tree climbing rope. Diameter was 44" and I stripped the limbs and topped the tree before felling the trunk. The stub was felled whole and stood ~ 95 feet tall. It had rained heavy for several days and the ground was saturated so when the trunk hit the ground a shock wave of saturated soil passed through the ground and "bumped" me through the ground. It was the weirdest sight to see a wave move through the soil. This was the second time this happened to me. Once in Maryland while taking town a huge tuliptree, I flipped a huge chunk out of the tree which landed flat as a pancake. From my aerial perspective I saw the shockwaves radiate outwards through the soil and shake the surrounding vegetation. The ground crew commented on the jolt they felt through the earth. The log was winched out of the ground as it had sunk about 40% of the diameter. We had a heck of a time fixing the crater. If you are in Arden I suggest you spend some time on the walking trials at Biltmore Park. I was cruising thru there looking for hemlocks to treat and spotted some really nice VA pines and shortleaf. The tallest Trident maple I have seen was in there and roughed out over 110'. Nice stuff deserving of a look now that leaves are off. Will F. Blozan President, Eastern Native Tree Society President, Appalachian Arborists, Inc. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of James Parton Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 7:06 PM To: ENTS Subject: [ENTS] Lake Julian Park, Arden/Skyland NC ENTS, I have just completed one of the largest measuring outings I have done for ENTS. It took 5 individual trips and is of the woods surrounding Lake Julian on the outskirts of Asheville NC in the Arden/Skyland area. Lake Julian is a decent sized lake of about 300 acres or so and was created to cool the Progress Energy ( Then CP&L ) coal powerplant that is located on one shore of the lake. The lake was created in 1963. Progress Energy leases land on the lake to the Buncombe County Parks & Recreation for entertainment purposes. http://www.buncombecounty.org/common/parks/LakeJulianBrochure.pdf http://h2o.enr.state.nc.us/esb/documents/FRENCHBROADRIVERBASIN2007.pdf http://www.buncombecounty.org/governing/depts/Parks/facilities/parks/LakeJul ian.htm The lake has been a favorite fishing spot of mine since the early 1980s and I have spent many hours on the shore and in boats fishing. I had never really thought about checking out the woods near the lake until after I moved close by. These are about as close as " home woods " as I can get. I explored 4 sections of forest near the lake ( See satillite image ). Section one is on the hothole side of the lake near Heywood rd. Section two is the old lake Julian campground. Section 3 is on the main side of the lake on the right just past the trestle bridge. Section four is the main part of the park itself on the other side of the lake along Old Shoals rd. The white arrows mark these areas. Dark blue arrows on the map mark future areas I would like to explore. The dark green one marks my home. I will now discribe the outings, section at a time. Section one. Located along the back section of the lake near Heywood Rd & Old Shoals Rd. This is a mixed forest of hardwoods & conifers. Various oaks & tuliptrees dominate along with white pine and pitch pine. Maples, sourwood and Virginia pine are present also. American holly is common in the understory but slightly less common than in the other three sections. Compared to the other sections it had the tallest tree measured. A 135.64ft White Pine. I found no tree reaching 10 feet in girth. This section was measured last August. White Pine 7' 6" cbh 100.25ft. Pitch Pine 5' 3/4" cbh 95.06ft White Pine 8' 1 1/2" cbh 98.81ft White Pine 9' 1/2" cbh 135.64ft! Pitch Pine 4' 5" cbh 76.41ft Tuliptree 7' 2" cbh 96.00ft Section 2. The campground picnic area. I really did not expect to find much in the way of large trees here but I was pleasantly surprised. The oaks, which lost out in size to the white pines in section 1 really competed here. One specimen measured over 13 feet in girth and another over 100 feet tall! The white pines also were outstanding here, one reaching over 120 feet tall. I found several large white pine stumps and was able to get a ring count from one of them. These trees have been cut down in the last two years. The ring count was 84 years in a stump just over a yard in diameter. The oldest trees here may date between 100-110 years judging by the this ring count, that is if they grew at a similar rate. Holly is common on the lakeshore. White Oak 13' 4" cbh 101.54ft! White Oak 11' 9" cbh 97.38ft White Pine 10' 8 1/2" cbh 98.78ft. Massive reiteration and large branch stubs. Larch? 5' 6" cbh 50.90ft White Oak 12' 4" cbh 90.03ft White Pine 10' 8" cbh 123.51ft! White Pine 11' 0" cbh 115.60ft! White Pine 9' 5" cbh Section 3. Past trestle bridge on right. The forest here is similar to section one but the trees are a bit bigger overall. Tuliptree is a bit more numerous. Black cherry and some decent hickories are present in addition to other hardwoods such as oak. American Holly is a very common understory tree. Some with bright red berries. I thought at first I might have found a near-record pitch pine but it came up short. But still it came up a nice tree. A tall Virginia pine leaning up close to it plus the pines rounded top made finding the highest point difficult but I think I got at least close. The tree was just over 96 feet tall. Section 3 had more trees over 100 feet than any of the other sections I measured. Tuliptree 6' 5 1/2" cbh 112.14ft Tuliptree 10' 11" cbh ( MT ) White Pine 6' 6" cbh 100.52ft Pitch Pine 7' 6" 1/2" cbh 96.17ft! White Pine 7' 5" cbh 115.11ft American Holly 2' 3" /2" cbh 34.17ft White Pine 8' 2" cbh 108.58ft Broken Top. Hickory 5' 5" cbh 101.76ft Section 4 Lake Julian Park. Long Shoals Over the years this area has been thinned of a lot of trees. Oaks and white pine dominate. Most of the whites are rather small in size but some are pretty tall for their girths. Two hemlocks were found. Both were healthy. I suspect they have been treated. Will maybe? Holly is everywhere. Some very laden and very red with berries. The park officials really must love hollies. So do I! Of the trees I measured, only one topped 100ft. A tuliptree. One of the numerous oaks may top 100 also. White Oak 8' 10 3/4" cbh 87.74ft Shortleaf Pine 6' 0" cbh 82.89ft American Holly 2' 10" cbh 38.76ft White Pine 4' 9 1/2" cbh 95.00ft Eastern Hemlock 2' 2" cbh 44.58ft Healthy! White Pine 4' 7" cbh 89.91ft White Oak 7' 8" cbh ( MT ) Tuliptree 6' 6 1/4" cbh 104.57ft American Holly 2' 9" cbh 40.03ft Sections two through four were done in the last two weekends. Section one was done last August. It seemed odd doing anything else at Lake Julian besides fishing! James Parton --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org You are subscribed to the Google Groups "ENTSTrees" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
