~reprinted from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Weekly Digest Bulletin.
~Annotated by T. Gath
Last month, DEC’s Carpenter Falls Unique Area and the adjoining Finger Lakes Land Trust’s Bahar Nature Preserve shared the honor of induction into the Old-Growth Forest Network, representing Cayuga County. The properties now hold the distinction of providing public access to picturesque forest that will be protected from harvesting and allowed to mature into old growth forest.
Carpenter Falls Unique Area and the Bahar Nature Preserve, contiguous properties in the town of Niles, together protect over 6,420 feet along Bear Swamp Creek, which flows through a dramatic 100-foot-deep gorge on its way to Skaneateles Lake. The forest within the gorge harbors Eastern hemlock, red oak, giant tulip trees, and very large oaks well over 100 years old. Together, the properties form a 90-acre retreat with a 1.6-mile trail that leads visitors through a stunning forest with impressive views and plunging waterfalls.
To maintain the unique, deep-shade forest habitat that hemlocks provide, emblematic of many gorges in the Finger Lakes region, both the DEC and the Finger Lakes Land Trust are treating the most ecologically important trees to protect against further infestation of the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid.
Mike DeMunn/Da hā da’ Nyah:—forester, member of the Hawk Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians, and longtime friend of the Finger Lakes Land Trust—said, “For us to walk in an old growth forest stand today is to be in a living remnant of the world our ancestors knew. Ours is an oral tradition and the old growth that still survives has priceless stories to tell us, and is the place to return to when we have lost our way and are not sure of our direction in the changing chaos of the world around us.”
Founded in 2012 by Dr. Joan Maloof, OGFN has over 185 forests in 32 states. The forest of Bahar Nature Preserve and Carpenter Falls State Unique Area will be the 19th New York forest to join the Old-Growth Forest Network, joining Zoar Valley Unique Area in Cattaraugus County, Thain Family Forest - New York Botanical Garden in Bronx County, Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Westchester County, Old Growth Trail - Green Lakes State Park in Onondaga County, Ancient Forest Trail and Woodland Trail - George Landis Arboretum in Schoharie County, Ampersand Mountain in Franklin County and more. View the full list of forests in the Network.
Photos: Carpenter Falls (DEC)
Annotation: Having grown up (well, againg anyway) close to Skaneateles Lake and its surrounding watershed we were no strangers to Carpenters Brook and so too, the falls. We have haike them from the access on Apple Tree Point road, from friends cottages on Apple Tree point and most recently from our achored boat in Shaneateles Lake, through Doc. Bailey's (former) yard and hiked directly up the stream channel to the falls.
The days we've spent in Capenters Brook were some of the most memorable times of both my childhood and as my time as a parent. We have hike up up, down and around Carpenter's Falls. The lower falls, not as spectcular as the upper falls with their swimming hole directly beneath the falls.
One one of my trips up the stream with a childhood friend I spotted a Tulip Tree (Liriodendraon tulipifera) sapling. Tulip trees are rare where I live in our eastern side of Cortland County so I though it prudent to bare root the tree and bring it home. We noticed a pair of discarded bover shorts in the stream so we wrapped the roots with the water soaked underware. The hike out took a while at which point we put the sapling in the trunk of my 1984 NIssan Sentra (detail to mark time) and later that day brought it home to Preble and planted it. Today, almost 40 years later that little sapling has grown into an impressive mature Tulip Tree, one of the few in north central Cortland County.
~T. Gath
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