Whitehouse to Canary Pond; Quiet and Remote

The last time I stood on the suspension bridge that carries the Northville Lake-Placid Trail over the West Branch of the Sacandaga at Whitehouse I was around 10 years old. That was close to 50 years ago.

Image 1: Bridge over the Sacandaga West Branch. The bridge crosses over a rock outcrop in the center of the river (now covered with trees). The total length of the two spans is close to 300 feet. 

That visit took place during a family camping trip to the State Campground on the Sacandaga River just south of Wells. My family was one of a half dozen families who regularly camped together at various campgrounds around the State. My childhood was punctuated by those trips. If I remember correctly, on this particular outing, a couple of the Dads decided to take a bunch of the kids on a hike. The bridge at Whitehouse was new at that time and a 300 foot long suspension bridge over a major river was well worth a look; especially since several of the Dads worked for what was then called the New York State Conservation Department. I don't actually remember the bridge but I know we stood on it because there's a family photo to prove it. What I do recall is that we hiked to a place where a USGS benchmark was set into a boulder alongside the trail. There is a benchmark noted on current maps about a mile north of the bridge on the NLPT so we probably went that way.

On my more recent visit (September, 2015) I did cross the bridge. I was headed for Canary Pond and I thought I might try to go the extra couple of miles to reach Silver Lake from the north. But I turned back at Canary Pond and the nearly 14 mile round trip was plenty of hiking for one day. It took me nine hours to walk that route and a big reason for that was that it was an absolutely gorgeous early fall day with the leaves just starting to turn. I took lots of picture and that takes time.

Image 2: West Branch Sacandaga looking south from the bridge at Whitehouse. 

The human history of the area is described in fascinating detail by Bill Ingersoll in Discover the Southern Adirondacks. As Ingersoll notes, the first settlers to the area arrived in the 1850s and over the roughly 100 year period between settlement and acquisition by the State the land served many uses. The first settlers may have attempted to farm the land but the long winters and thin soil would have discouraged that idea, and from 1900 onward a succession of hotels, hunting lodges and finally a boys summer camp occupied the site. The surrounding wilderness has been owned by the state going back to the late 19th century and the 350 acres where the bridge is now located were acquired in 1962.

The hike south to Canary Pond passes through a rapidly maturing 2nd growth hardwood forest. The Silver Lake Wilderness lies in what was once part of the great northern hardwood forests that covered most of New York State. Sugar Maple, Yellow Birch, and American Beech were the dominant tree species and, today, stands of Birch and Maples are rapidly approaching maturity. The Beech are mostly gone; killed off by Beech Bark Disease. This route passes through forests where many trees are approaching 36 inches in diameter with a few larger ones mixed in. There are also stands of Hemlock and I measured one Hemlock on the slope leading up to Mud Pond Notch at 47 inches in diameter.

One of the more interesting sights along the way to Canary Pond was the beaver dam on a small stream between Mud Pond and Canary Pond. This dam is (or was) an engineering marvel. On the day I hiked the route (Sept. 27, 2015), it was very dry; northern New York State had received below average moisture for the year and August and September were notably dry. The beaver had managed to completely block the stream and the outflow below the dam amounted to barely a trickle. As seen in images 3 through 6, the beaver pond was quite large -over 6 acres as measured in Google Earth- and water was backed up to the very top of the dam. Unfortunately for the beaver shortly after my visit the area would receive between three and four inches of rain in a 24 hour period. I have to wonder if the dam stood up to that deluge.

Image 3: Beaver Dam along the trail between Mud Pond and Canary Pond

Image 4: The pond the beaver build.

Image 5: Looking up at the dam from the stream bed. The water in the foreground was standing water in the stream bed. Almost no water was getting through the dam.

Image 6: Looking back across the pond from the far side. The dam,, and the vantage point for the three pictures, is in the farthest distant corner of this shot. On the far shore left of the beaver house. 

I'd be interested to know if the the dam stood up to the heavy rain but I'm sure the beaver will manage, they have been damming this stream for centuries if not longer. Using our ability to view historical imagery in Google Earth we can see that over just the past 15 years the pond pictured above has filled and drained several times. The sequence of images that follows comes from Google Earth showing imagery from 2013, 2011, 2009, and 2006. From this we see that the current large pond was created since the date of the most recent satellite imagery for this area dated from August 2013.

The yellow lines in image seven are the tracks capture by my GPS. There are two lines because one is the track on the way to Canary Pond and the other is the track from my return trip. As you can see, the lines don't overlap, and the difference averages around 30 feet. I keep promising to write more about GPS accuracy, and explain why the tracks differ by that amount, so maybe I'll get around to that soon.

Image 7: The beaver pond/meadow as seen in Google Earth imagery from August 2013.

Image 8: The beaver pond/meadow as seen in Google Earth Imagery from May 2011. You might also wonder why this image is "fuzzy" when compared with the one from 2013. The most recent round of imagery used in Google Earth (as seen in image 7) is at a higher resolution than was previously available.

Image 9: The beaver pond as seen in imagery from May 2009. The beaver had dammed the stream and filled the pond.

Image 10: The beaver pond/meadow as seen in Google Earth Imagery from June 2006. The dam was out and the pond was a grass-filled meadow.

I did eventually make it to Canary Pond, a lovely and remote body of water (Image 11). Along the way you pass Mud Pond, site of a lean-to that is in particularly good shape. Ingersoll says that the appreciation of Mud Pond requires a special aesthetic (images 12 and 13) and for tired through hikers on the NLPT the difficulty of getting to the pond to get water probably does lead to a bit of cursing. But I thought it was pretty enough and marshes look to me like an exceptionally good place for bird watching. By the way, the stream that Ingersoll mentions as a source of water for campers staying at the leanto, was completely dry on the day I was there.

Image 11: Canary Pond

Image 12: Mud Pond

Image 13: The path over the outlet of Mud Pond. A split log bridge passes through and should keep feet dry most of the time.

Image 14: Fall foliage along the Sacandaga West Branch.

Ground Truthing in the Fishing Brook Range

The sequence of images below show progressively closer views of a small mountain in the Adirondacks. In images three and four I've outlined an area of special interest; an area that I know to be a dense spruce thicket. I know that because on a recent Saturday (Oct. 2014) I was there; trying to bushwhack to the top.

Viewing my route in Google Earth, and applying my newly gained knowledge, it's relatively easy to differentiate among the different types of cover found along this ridge. There are thickets comprised mostly of stunted and densely packed Spruce and there are areas where mature deciduous trees dominate. Images three and four clarify the distinction with outlines around the dense thickets. Outside of the outline you can make out individual trees. Inside there are thousands of small trees, mostly spruce, jammed together in a nearly impenetrable thicket.

Image 1: The Fishing Brook Range. The pink line is the boundary between Forest Preserve and private land. The distant marker is the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 2: The contrast between thickets and the more open deciduous forests starts to be visible. The tops of individual trees can be seen in the more open areas. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 3: The dense cover areas have a distinctive look when compared with the surrounding forest. (Source: Google Earth)

Image 4: A closer view from a slightly different angle. A practical route along the ridge would stay to the left and avoid the thicket areas such as the one marked by the outline. (Source: Google Earth)

Ole 3400

I had set off to try to reach the top of the unnamed 3400 foot peak south east of where the Northville Lake Placid Trail (NLPT) reaches its' high point near Long Lake. The trail crosses a ridge at just over 3000 feet and it’s a pleasant 3.5 mile walk to this height of land (south from Rte 28N). I've hiked in this area many times and I've been intrigued by the ridge that runs from the trail to the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. Getting to the height of land by trail is easy. But from there it's a 4.5 mile bushwhack to the summit of Fishing Brook Mountain. Along the way are several smaller peaks and a couple high elevation ponds that I'd like to see close up. This is wild and little visited country.

Image 5: Along the ridge on a previous outing. October 2013.

Image 6: Spruce thicket along the ridge.

My recent hike was a test of the feasibility of making a longer trip along the ridge. And a test run turned out to be a wise thing to do. I didn't make it to the top of even the first peak along the ridge. Just a mile from where I left the trail I was turned back by rough terrain, the limited daylight of a late October day, and those spruce thickets previously mentioned and shown in image six. 

I did keep a GPS track of my hike and when I overlaid the route I followed on the satellite image the areas to avoid became visible. The spruce thickets look different than the areas where the forest is more open. I might have guessed at these distinctions before the trip but now I have no doubt. If it looks like the areas outlined in images three and four, go around. And this is not too surprising. In the Adirondacks, the ecological transition zone between 3000 and 3500 feet tends to be a particularly difficult place to travel. A lesson that I relearn every few years.

As for Fishing Brook Mountain, making the summit by following the ridge is rather serious undertaking. A much more feasible route would be to stay at a lower elevation in deciduous forests on north side of the ridge. Image seven shows the area as seen from the south. The red line on the left is the NLPT and the light red lines delineate the boundary between Forest Preserve and private lands. Based on my ground truthing the lighter green areas are deciduous forests while the darker greens are conifer dominated forests.

Image 7: The area as it would appear if viewed from from an airplane flying south of the ridge line  Route 28N is visible along the top of the image. Long Lake is off image to the left; Newcomb to the right. (Source: Google Earth)

Satellites and Sensors

Digital images like the ones we view in Google Earth are actually a form of sensor-gathered data. A digital camera contains a light sensitive sensor divided into a grid of cells organized into rows and columns (commonly called pixels). When an image is made the sensor assigns a number to each cell. These numbers represent the color and intensity of the light striking each cell and those numbers are saved to a file. When you view the image the numbers are converted back to the appropriate colors for display. Modern image sensors have millions of cells and can differentiate among millions of distinct colors.

Larger sensors record values for more cells and this is one of the factors that determines the quality of a digital image. Generally speaking, more expensive cameras contain larger sensors and produce higher quality images. But sensor size is not the only factor that determines image quality. The lens system of the camera focuses the light on the sensor so lens quality imposes a limit on the amount of detail that a sensor can resolve. For satellite imagery the number of pixels in the sensor, and the quality of the lens, are main limiting factors on the level of detail we can see in the final images.

Ecological Succession and Environmental History

For the purpose of picking better hiking routes we can analyze the data simply by viewing the imagery in Google Earth (or other similar systems). Combined with a bit of on-the-ground experience it's relatively easy to see differences in the types of ground cover and terrain. But what about more subtle distinctions? What if I wanted to differentiate among the ecological communities present in an area? The distinctions between communities can be subtle and it oftentimes comes down to recognizing species assemblages that we are not going to visible in satellite imagery. We can make broad assessments from satellite gathered data; the communities present in a spruce thicket will be different from communities found in deciduous forest. But recognizing the more subtle distinctions requires additional data and commonly that data has to come from poking around on the ground.

My interest is in ecological succession and how ecological communities change over time. At any given place, the assemblage of species present will be governed by soil, climate, topography and disruption. You don't find flamingos in the Adirondacks but you do find different types of trees on north facing slopes as compare to south facing slopes just a short distance away. Over time the communities present at a location will reach an equilibrium but even that climax state shifts over time in response to changes in the larger environment. On top of this, very few locations in the Adirondacks are at the equilibrium state because of disruptive events that include logging, fires, storms and disease outbreaks. The Adirondack forests we see today are not what existed 250 years ago.

The north side of Fishing Brook Mountain bears forests at varying stages of succession aligned with the effects of disruptive events that have occurred in the last 120 years. Most of the ridge has been logged, some places more than once. There have been fires of varying sizes. There have been storms such as the hurricane of 1950, the derecho storm in 1995, and the ice storm of 1998. And currently the forests are being altered by non-native diseases and insects. In particular, Beech Bark Disease has killed the majority of large American Beech trees previously present in this area.

The variable matrix of forest stages present on this ridge became evident to me as I struggled along the ridge on my hike. In places I would break out of the dense thickets into open areas with a low cover comprised mainly of ferns and a canopy dominated by large Yellow Birch (Betula alleghaniensis).  Neither of these community types are likely to be climax communities and the pattern of occurrence seemed unnatural as well. Teasing out the sequence of events and transitions that led to the current pattern is in the realm of environmental history. To me these little patches have an interesting story to tell. This is a topic I plan to return in upcoming posts.

Note:

There are several recognized communities that include Yellow Birch but the stands on this ridge are most likely the result of some past disturbance.

 

Mystery Lines: What are those lines seen in the satellite images?

I love to visually explore an area using Google Earth (or similar software) and then go off and match up what is actually present on the ground with what I could see on the computer. Google Earth provides easy access to high resolution images but, if you are willing to dig a little deeper, there are many other sources of spatially referenced data that can be analyzed to learn about areas we want to study.

But let's talk specifics. Looking at satellite images of the Hemlock Forest area I noticed that there are some odd looking parallel formations present in one area of the forest. You can just make them out in the image from Google Earth (Image One). What are they? What process created them?

Image One: The lines are seen in the center of the image running at a 45 degree angle from upper right to lower left. The straight line that runs from top to bottom is a stone wall. Source: Google Earth, Historic imagery from April 1997.

Viewed in Google Earth I couldn't see enough detail to come up with a plausible explanation for what the lines represent or how they were created. But, for locations in New York State, other options exist including the very high resolution orthoimagery available from the New York State GIS Clearinghouse (NYSCG). Orthoimagery is a fancy name for aerial photographs; pictures taken from airplanes using high resolution cameras and techniques that minimize distortion. When you take pictures of the earth from a satellite the distance between the satellite and the ground pretty much ensures that the camera is at a right angle to the ground. So there is little or no distortion of the image. When you take those same pictures from an airplane, if the camera is not perfectly parallel with the ground, the images are distorted.

The imagery available from the New York State GIS Clearinghouse (NYSCG) covers (nearly) all of New York State and is available to the public via the NYSGC website. The catch is that there are thousands of files and they are big files. And, once you find the right images, you need a way to view them. These images are geo-referenced meaning that using the right software you can view the images and they will line up correctly with other map-based data layers. The software you use is commonly referred to as GIS; an acronym for Geographic Information System. Loaded into a GIS these geo-referenced images can be analyzed using a variety of methods. They can also be used to provide a base layer on which you overlay other data. This is much like what you do when you view satellite imagery in Google Earth and then add points or lines or outlines (polygons) on top.

The Hemlock Forest orthoimagery (Images Two and Three) (viewed using Quantum GIS) reveals a lot more detail and those curious lines now take on a distinctly man-made look. Particularly telling is the track that comes in from the left and crosses the formation (Image Three). They look like tire tracks but when taking measurements in the GIS I found that the lines in main set are about 50 yards apart. That made me think that they might be ditches created using a tractor or bulldozer. It is also more apparent from the orthoimages that the formations are filled with water. The dark color seen in the formations is the same as the color of small ponds and streams present in nearby areas.

Image Two: The lines are in the center of the image running at roughly a 45 degree angle to the top of the image. The red lines represent the boundary of the State Park. The park boundary is a separate layer viewed on top of the images in the GIS. Source: New York State GIS Clearinghouse.

Image Three: Zooming in for a closer view the structures and the "track" coming in from the left have a distinctly man-made look. Source: New York State GIS Clearinghouse

Still, I had to wonder why someone would create ditches -about 50 yards apart- through the forest at this place. That left only one solution: field trip. From the Hemlock Trail parking area twenty minutes by trail and another half hour winding my way through the swampy forest brought me to the place pictured in Image Four. This, clearly, was one of the ditches seen in the orthoimagery and it was also immediately apparent that these are ditches that someone dug.

Image Four: The ground view of one of the water courses seen in the aerial photos. Filled with debris and leaf litter these were probably a few feet deep when created. The surrounding area is a swampy, nearly level. The entire area has very poor drainage. So it seems likely that someone dug these ditches to provide drainage for some type of agriculture.

The ditches are roughly 50 yards apart and run in straight lines through the forest for two to three hundred yards. What was not apparent from the aerial imagery is that the area where these ditches are found is very flat and very swampy. A few larger and older trees are present but most of the trees are roughly the same size (and age). Based on the size of the trees I estimated that this area was probably in use for some type of farming 50 years ago.

But something was still missing. The surrounding areas were all clearly used for agriculture in the past but this area is very wet and it is surrounded by swamps. My visit took place in late November and it had been generally dry, and even so, every depression in this area is filled with water. During wetter parts of the year this area would likely be flooded. The trees that are present are types that you find in a hardwood swamp or floodplain forest.

However, after poking around a bit more, a possible explanation appeared. One of my interests is in how invasive species compete against native species so I'm always on the lookout for invasive plants and trees. And I noticed the presence of a number of small, stunted, trees interspersed among the common species. Being late November, with the leaves down, I couldn't tell right away what those trees were. Then, one of them gave up its' secret, on a branch I spotted a small apple. The stunted trees are apples trees and now I could see that someone had tried to drain the area to create an orchard.

It appears that that plan did not work out very well. Apple trees prefer well drained soil and perhaps the farmer was unaware that this area is notable for lying over a layer of impermeable clay. Not too far away that clay, combined with the nearly flat topography, has produced a type of wetland known as a "perched" swamp. A perched swamp is a wetland where the water on the surface is not connected to the local water table but where the drainage is so poor that you get a swamp anyway. In most swamps the water level rises and falls along with the local water table but this is a place where the water doesn't drain through the soil and runoff is slow or non-existent. Creating an orchard here was never going to be easy. Which may be why we now have this wonderful little wild area to explore and enjoy.

Resources:
New York State GIS Clearinghouse Orthoimagery