Virgin (Old Growth) forests

[getitdone1]

I've been saving a newspaper clipping for several years. It's an article about a virgin forest in Illinois called, Spitler Woods State Natural Area and located near Mount Zion, Illinois. I've been intending to get over there and give it a look and may do so this fall when the fall colors are at their peak.

I thought such forests were very rare--and they are--but not as rare as I thought. I went to the Wikipedia site and found lots of such forests in the United States. I believe it was 3 in my state of Indiana and 4 in the state of Illinois. I noticed they do not have the Spitler Woods listed.

I'm sure most of the people here are lovers of a nice woods and many of you have wondered what the old forests of the pioneers looked like. When I take a gun to the woods I'm interested in more than the gun or the game and enjoy the peace and solitude of the woods. I have an affection for big, old trees and often think about the many people who passed by them--including native Indians--long before me.

If you'd like, go to this subject at the Wikipedia site and you might find a virgin woods near you you'd like to visit. Write "List of old growth forests" in the Wikipedia search box.

I've never been in a virgin woods and I really ought to do so this fall or I might not make it in my life time.

Don

[pwl44m]

We have the Redwoods and the Sequoias reasonably close. What I am fascinated by is the OLD pictures They have of Them. Then of course the Redwood that a Car will fit through.

[Blaine]

I walked the trails of the Lady Byrd Johnson Memorial Forest in N Cali....wow, all those redwoods that were 1000+ years old...some 2000....it was like being in church.

[adirondakjack]

With rare exception, we have OLD woods, but most of them were once logged off. A tremdous amount of timber was floated out of the adirondacks prior to 1800, and what wasn't gone then was often clear cut in the late 1800s. The sad sight of stumps and tops as far as one could see motivated TR and others to start the Conservation effort.

I have stumbled into places I THOUGHT were virgin woods, only to sit a watch on a "mound" 10 or 12 feet in diameter I later realized was a tree stump rotted into soil from some massive tree, the kind the English favored for ship timber.

[Booger Bill]

Many years ago I went to a small museum at I think, downieville california. They had some very old photgraphs on the wall of the exact area of mountain side you could see out the window or front door. I noticed in the pictures that the area was open and bare where now was tall trees. I asked the very old currater what was up with that? He said it was cutomary in the old days that when the indians left the high country in the area in the fall for lower country in the winter that they would purposely set the area on fire as the new growth made for more animals and better hunting!

[getitdone1]

We have the Redwoods and the Sequoias reasonably close. What I am fascinated by is the OLD pictures They have of Them. Then of course the Redwood that a Car will fit through.

pwl44m,

I've seen'em both. Drove through that famous Redwood with the hole cut through it. They are spectacular. Just one of several things (the weather especially, Southern CA) I like about California.

I have a book about the Redwoods and on the jacket is a picture of a couple of men standing in the huge undercut of one of these trees!
Those guys really knew the meaning of "hard work!"

Don

[Sixgun]

Here is Pa. they are called "First Growth". While most of Pa. has been logged, there are still areas around here (in S.E, Pa) that are untouched. The land that has been owned by the DuPont, other old money families and other government institutions are still the way they were a million years ago. I frequently run across trees such as oak and ash that have base diameters of 4' and more. These are old buggers. Dang near worth their weight in gold-----------Sixgun

[AJMD429]

I believe one in Indiana is in the extreme southwest tip of the state, and would like to go there sometimes. Biggest TulipTree or something like that in the state.

Our area was logged in the post-civil-war era, but some of the trees in ravines and so on were spared, and occasionally you find a fallen oak with over 200 rings...

[Lastmohecken]

Wow! I would love to visit an old growth forest, and see the same thing that my distant grandfathers seen when this nation was a baby. I have often wondered how the first white settlers traveled in those virgin forest. And then I also marvel at some of the open country in my area, that must have been forest 200 plus years ago, but has now been huge open fields for has long as anyone alive can remember and then some.

[hightime]

I love that big timber too, but iif you like to eat meat now is better. I own a fifty year old pine plantation and the deer much prefer the surrounding cut off areas. A few years ago , while the trees were loaded with ice, a wind came up and tipped over a couple thousand of my trees. I was sick, as time went on the area grew up with brush, maple, birch and aspen. Now I have deer, and grouse in those areas. I quess I like to see some large trees and have the game too. By the way those red pine that my dad and I planted in the early '60's are 100' tall and up to 20'' in dia. From a one time thinning, 50%, and natural damage 2/3 are gone. I still have about 90 thousand left.

Owen

[Shasta]

We have the Redwoods and the Sequoias reasonably close. What I am fascinated by is the OLD pictures They have of Them. Then of course the Redwood that a Car will fit through.

This is the living redwood tree Perry refers to shown as my 1955 Chevrolet Nomad passes through in 1998. The sign on the left reads "SHRINE DRIVE-THRU TREE" "AGE 5,000 DIA. 21 FT. HEIGHT 275 FT. CIR. 64 FT. MYERS FLAT, CALIFORNIA"

The coastal redwood groves of California are truly a wonderous place to visit!


SHASTA

[Pisgah]

Old-growth forests are beautiful, but they are virtual deserts for game animals. Indians knew what they were doing when they burned vast tracts on a regular basis.

[geobru]

This is an old growth douglas fir tree that is probably between 5 - 700 years old.


This stand is between 200-250 years old.


This is stand in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. It is in a stand that has a mix of older trees and trees that are much younger. I like to hunt this area because it is beautiful and there are deer to be had there. One misconception about the virgin forests is that all the mountains were evenly covered with old growth. That isn't the way nature works. The stands of trees were affected by natural and man caused fires, desease, and insects. The result is that the forest was made up of stands with differing ages. These pictures were taken near an area that burned in 1918. Most of the old growth was killed in that fire, except in a few sheltered draws where small patches of trees survived the heat of the fire. All of that occurred across the river from where these pictures were taken, but this area once had a lot more of the older trees. Over the years, trees blew down, light got to the forest floor, and seedlings survived and grew under the older trees.

Native Americans burned the alpine slopes in nearby hills to promote the growth of huckleberries, which were dried and used for food. Deer spent their summers in those areas to take advantage of the forage that was there for them. Hunters had to go high to get a deer before some of the timber was logged, which brought the animals down from the high country to take advantage of the new growth in the logged areas.

It is interesting to go through Mt. Rainier National Park which has never been logged. There are areas that have spectacular stands of old growth, but much if the area has stands of trees that are intermediate aged, depending on when the last fire went through.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I have to agree with AJ on this. Here in the East, especially in New England 'old growth' and 'virgin forest' are not the same thing. As a matter of fact I had a chat with an old forestry officer in the White Mountains years ago and he smiled when he told me that unlike in the medical field, the term 'virgin' is a relative term in forestry.

I checked wiki and the three spots listed in NH have clearly been logged over. Yes, the trees are old, lots of them well over 100 years old, but almost all of New England was heavily logged in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Those old trees are what the foresters call second growth. They are old, but the forest is not virgin. A virgin forest is one that has never been touched by the logger's or the settler's axe.

[Old Time Hunter]

One of Wisconsin's three national forests, the Chequamegon-Nicolet has over 1.2 Million square acres...but 90%+ had been logged at one time or another a hundred years ago or so. But there are at least 50,000 sq. acres of "Virgin' forest still out there...just gotta go out and find it.

Personally, I would rather harvest by select cutting every third tree on a rotating basis about 10-12 years apart. Otherwise I end up with too much dead fall. And, I do not cut the hardwoods and pine, mostly just cut the popular or aspen, leaving the oak, maple, and coniferous trees. The max life span of the aspen in my neck of the woods is 50 years, but most get too heavy for their roots by 30-35 years.

[hfcable]

joyce kilmer forest in th nantahal natl forest- untouched forest n watershed. looks like it did 500 years ago! the whole east looked that way once

[getitdone1]

I'm about ready to make a trip to an "Old Growth" woods. Now I have to decide which one.

1. Spitler Woods, Mount Zion, Illinois--Approx. center of the state.

2. Beall Woods, Mount Carmel, Illinois (They say this is pronounced "Bell.")--Southeast part of the state.

A guy at Spitler told me these were the only two Old Growth woods in Illinois.

Beall Woods is right next to the Wabash River.

Have any of you been to either of these woods? I need to decide which one has the best trees. May try to contact a forester who has been to both.

By the way, did you ever notice the same name for towns and cities in different states? Some examples for Indiana/Illinois are: Clay City, Albion, Sullivan and Danville. There's probably a half dozen more.

Don

[LeverBob]

I walked the trails of the Lady Byrd Johnson Memorial Forest in N Cali....wow, all those redwoods that were 1000+ years old...some 2000....it was like being in church.

I know the feeling...G-D's creations versus mans. That is my church. I know the feeling well, the awe & reverence... well said.

LB

[kevin in nh]

Here in New England we have plenty of trees but you guys out West....WOW....it must be humbling to be standing next to such magnificent trees......

[Mike D.]

We have the Redwoods and the Sequoias reasonably close. What I am fascinated by is the OLD pictures They have of Them. Then of course the Redwood that a Car will fit through.

Perry, there is a grove of Big Trees(sequoiadendron giganteum) east of Foreshill in Placer county. It is the furthest north that they are have been found. Only 6 trees standing and 2 down but well worth a drive to see.

[Gobblerforge]

Here we have Dysart Woods in Belmont county in south east Ohio. Nice big trees but I would not call them huge. A wonderfull hike and less than an hour away for us.
Gobbler

[kimwcook]

I feel more spiritual and closer to our maker when I'm in the woods than any other time. Especially in big timber on a high mountain like in the Cascades.

[2X22]

This is an old growth douglas fir tree that is probably between 5 - 700 years old.


This stand is between 200-250 years old.


This is stand in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. It is in a stand that has a mix of older trees and trees that are much younger. I like to hunt this area because it is beautiful and there are deer to be had there.

Yep, that's where I like to hunt too. Back in the 70's and early '80's I logged lots of old growth fir. Had more than one 1 log load, 10' on the stump and 22' long to not go overweight. There are many square miles of old growth fir in the Cascades. So cool to hunt.

2x22