By KIM SMITH DEDAM
BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE -- Careening through a forest dell of four-foot hay-scented fern, scientists pushed into thick underbrush heading toward a swamp.
The earthy smell of peat and spruce gum hung on the wind, and thunder rumbled off the mountain peaks.
Not many humans have traversed this soggy patch of earth, where every step leaves a footprint-shaped pool of water.
Heavy rubber boots can sink up to the knee; they make a giant sucking sound in stride.
Fresh signs of bear, moose and deer were apparent in open areas.
In this setting, New York State Natural Heritage ecologists were exploring deep regions of a 15,000-acre parcel of former Finch, Pruyn & Co. lands sold to the Nature Conservancy's Adirondack Chapter last year.
STRATEGIC RESEARCH
Tucked between the base of Blue and Dun Brook mountains, it's a small L-shaped sliver of the total 161,000 acres.
A final strategy for land-use management is still in the works, but most of the property will be sold in working-forest agreements, explained Nature Conservancy scientist Michelle Brown, who organized the trip.
Ecologist Tim Howard said the region is a likely candidate for special easement restrictions to protect high-grade wetlands sprawled out around Dun Brook.
Howard and colleagues Greg Edinger and Laurie Swift are top scientists with the Department of Environmental Conservation's Natural Heritage Program. They are working in the Adirondacks this summer as hired experts for the Conservancy.
Their research will help govern management of special habitat.
ROADS UNTRAVELED
Assembling at 9 a.m., the expedition rambled in four-wheel drive along old logging roads until the trail vanished in new-growth forest.
"I guess this is as far as we go on wheels," Brown said.
Evidence of skidder ruts and overgrown timber staging areas put the last cut here some 40 to 50 years ago, she estimated.
Using GPS points, Howard and Edinger marked the woodland parking lot and started to bushwhack due north toward the swamp.
Special hand-held computers helped catalog data at observation points along the way.
Through miles of changing terrain, Edinger marked seven or eight sites, where he counted numbers and types of trees and plants at the canopy, sub-canopy, shrub and herbaceous levels.
Edinger also used a Biltmore stick, an old-fashioned lumbering gauge that measures height from a distance and is traditionally used to estimate the board feet of lumber in any tree.
About half way in, Howard noticed a black spruce tree with deformed needles curling inward like a ball.
On closer inspection, he discovered tiny red clumps of dwarf mistletoe, a parasite plant that grows under the bark of a tree.
The mistletoe infects primarily fir and pine trees, causing them to grow "witches brooms," strange-looking bundles of twigs and foliage stuck at the top.
HERITAGE DATA
Information gathered from the swamp will be added to state Heritage Forest data banks.
"The upland forest shows active management," Howard said, "but down in the wetlands, there's a lot less. We could call this a high-quality example of black spruce-tamarack swamp."
He had been up Dun Mountain the week before and had several other sites to visit in these watery regions.
The science will inform good land management, Brown said.
It will also work as a benchmark to observe impact of climate change on pristine areas.
With 74,000 acres tagged for timber management, the Nature Conservancy hopes to learn all it can about condition, habitat and natural communities before the land is sold to an as-yet-unnamed timber company.
Large-scale protection requires more than just mapping, Brown said.
"It is a mosaic of forest preserve and working forest."
kdedam@pressrepublican.com
