Trip up to the Tobique

[SwampDonkey]

Turned out to be a nice fall day today and decided to take a trip up the Tobique River Valley and walk up a hardwood ridge to take some pics.

The following trees of this size are only scattered in this uneven-aged hardwood stand. All these big hardwood are dominant with a lean of at least 10 degrees.  :


Yellow Birch


sugar maple with axe marks where some one was poaching for birdseye figure.  :


Same tree with lean.


Another even bigger sugar maple


Another big one.  See the lean? Kind of looking from a side angle.  :-\


Usually what you get from those big leaners. Sent to the pulpwood grinder.  :'(

I had a very large balsam fir tree on my camera, for some reason I inadvertantly deleted it.  It was close to 25 inches in diameter with a nice crown and no seems or woodpecker damage. I looked for the large aspen trees that were here in 1999 when I marked trees, but they had been cut since. Lost forever. They had to build a bladed trail in to get them out. :

Some Scenery


Trail up the hardwood ridge


Morning sun hitting the last remnants of fall foliage on this ridge.


Looking up the Tobique River Valley from the Ridge


Bald Peak behind another hardwood ridge, partially harvested. Picture taken from the same hardwood ridge as the tree photos above.


The Tobique River at Rilley Brook.


cheers 

[asy]

Thanks for the photos!

It's nice to see photos of terrain so different to ours.

asy :D

[sprucebunny]

Nice pictures, thanks ;D

Why do the trees lean ??? I was reading somewhere about trees leaning INTO the wind ???

[Larry]

Great pictures SD.  Thank you for taking the time to share.

[DanG]

Good job with the pics, SD.  That's some beautiful country up there.  I'm gonna get down to Torreya Park sometime soon and get some pics on some of the nature trails there.  I think you'll like it. ;D

[Jeff]

I see by that bottom pic donk, that you get up there once in a blue moon. 

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff, it's not too often I get up there, for sure. I think there must've been some moisture on the lens, made an interesting image.  :-\

[Minnesota_boy]

Why do the trees lean ??? I was reading somewhere about trees leaning INTO the wind ???

If the wind blew constantly from one direction, the trees would learn to lean into it.  Most trees lean because of a hard blow that they weren't prepared for.  It's likely that a bunch blew down, but some survive with a lean.

Some of our red pines have a curve in the first log, just a gentle sweep.  That may be caused by a heavy wet snow when they were young and the tree tries to straighten out.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't have a definative answer, but maybe it has something to do with their ..... 'reclining' years.  ;D

I'm sure wind has a role in one way or another.

Most often, from old hardwood trees I've seen cut, they present qualities similar to the stump image.  :-\ Those trees I've photographed are over 150 years old. The aspen that were cut had quite a few trees bigger than these hardwood, and were taller. Also, softwoods grow taller than hardwoods. Those dominant hardwood trees were around 65 feet tall and the dominant softwood are over 70 feet. The average tree size on that ridge is probably around 9 inches. We're certainly not talking about large quanties of 20-40 inch hardwoods. This lot used to be permitted by the government to locals to cut firewood. This area was also hit by forest fires many moons ago as the valley bottom and slopes where dominated by softwood. Balm of Gilead , elm and black ash on the islands and floodplains.

[sawguy21]

The trees on the west coast of Vancouver Island lean away from the wind and the branches on the windward side are flattened. It is an odd sight.

[OneWithWood]

If a tree is leaning due to a hard blow, say from a falling tree, won't there be a scar or some damage that would be noticeable?  It is true that a hard blow will cause lean.  Another cause, I believe, is the natural inclination of a tree to grow towards sunlight.  If the tree as a sapling grew in the shade of a larger tree it would naturally develop lean,
would it not?

or is that wood it knot?  ;)