Pigeon Lake Wilderness: Old Growth Forest

What does it mean to say that a forest is "old growth"? Well, some of the trees must be old, obviously.  But how old, and, are all the trees old? My definition for "old growth" is that it means roughly the same thing as "never logged". But that might be softened in some cases to include "lightly or selectively logged" or, "logged, but that was a really long time ago". It's an imprecise term.

Using the first definition --never logged-- the Adirondacks contain some the last old growth forests found in the eastern United States. And the Pigeon Lake Wilderness Area stands out as one of the best places to see for yourself what the Adirondack forests looked like a couple of hundred years ago.

From Google Earth. The route taken starts at the trailhead (far left) and makes a circuit that includes 5 named lakes. Numerous variations on the route I followed are possible.

I recently walked a 13 mile route that included visits to five named bodies of water: Windfall Pond, Queer Lake, Chub Lake, Constable Pond and Mays Pond. Exceptional trees, among the largest I've seen in the Adirondacks, are present all along this route.

Queer Lake from near the LeanTo. Queer Lake is cut into several sections by two pennisulae that  

But, you don't need to walk all day to see the old growth. Big trees appear almost immediately as you walk the trail to Windfall Pond from the large parking area on Big Moose Road (three miles west of Eagle Bay). By itself, the presence of large trees doesn't mean that it's old growth. Maybe the area was logged selectively, or maybe it was logged in the early days of Adirondack logging. That was 150 years ago, and many Adirondack tree species reach nearly maximum size in that amount of time. No, it's the size and variety of tree species seen in the Pigeon Lake Wilderness that make it so special.

Forest scene near Windfall Pond.

There are numerous large hardwoods; trees with a diameter of 36 inches or more four feet above the ground; Maple, Yellow Birch and Black Birch, among other species. These big, old, trees are spectacular, but large hardwoods are present throughout the Adirondacks. The clue that this place is different is the presence of large Red Spruce scattered among the hardwoods.

A large Red Spruce. This tree measured 26 inches in diameter. Spruce of this size are scattered throughout the forest between Windfall Pond and Chub Lake. Hardwoods, Hemlock and Pine can reach diameters over four feet. But Spruce over two feet in diameter are uncommon and the largest Red Spruce ever found in the Adirondacks measured just 37 inches.

From historic records we know that Spruce represented up to 25% of the trees in a typical un-logged Adirondack forest. But those big Spruce were like gold nuggets to loggers. The wood was straight-grained, easily cut, and resilient. Spruce was also the best species for paper pulp so it was highly sought after for both lumber and paper making. Plus, softwood logs are lighter and more buoyant than comparable hardwood logs so they were easier to handle and could be floated to the mills. In many places where mature hardwood stands are found today, the big softwoods are totally absent.

This 1903 USGS Topographic map of the area that today makes up the Pigeon Lake Wilderness. This area is notable for what is missing. There are no roads leading into the interior of the area. 

A second clue that the Pigeon Lake area is different is the dearth of old woods roads. Much of the Adirondacks, even places that we think of as being wild and remote, are criss-crossed by old, abandoned, roads. Early USGS maps (from around the year 1900) show roads penetrating into every corner of the region and many wilderness trails follow routes that were originally used to haul more than hikers. And logging usually resulted in the creation of dense networks of skid roads. Where logging was more recent, the Whitney Wilderness is a good example, there can be so many skid roads that following the trails becomes difficult. Old abandoned roads are notably absent in the Pigeon Lake area.

This Yellow Birch is one of the largest trees I've seen in the Adirondacks. It measured 50 inches in diameter.

A good sized American Beech (just over 30 inches in diameter at 4 feet). This is not a huge Beech tree by historic standards, but Beech Bark Disease has killed nearly all the Beeches of this size. This tree looked relatively healthy. Whenever I spot a Beech that has somehow survived BBD I look to see how the young beeches that surround it are doing. If they also appear to be healthy, it might be that the parent tree has some resistance to BBD. In this case, the smaller beeches surrounding the big all appeared to be diseased.

Chub Lake. The trail between Queer Lake and Chub Lake is little used and some of the best old growth stands are found in that section.  

The aptly named Windfall Pond.

The West Mountain Trail runs for nearly two miles alongside a complex of wetlands and ponds. This trail leads to Pigeon Lake and eventually reaches West Mountain; the prominent Mountain just west of Raquette Lake.