By John Coleman
Spring is a good time to celebrate a small victory, a victory over, seemingly, overwhelming odds. In March, the Forest Service contacted us with a final decision on the Upper Cheat River Project. They set aside three stands of particularly old trees important to the community at the project’s center. Those 120 acres, on slopes overlooking Horseshoe Run near the community of Leadmine, had been proposed for clear-cutting (https://nfip-abra.hub.arcgis.com/pages/usfs-upper-cheat-river). One of those stands contains the 3rd largest Eastern Hemlock in the state, according to the West Virginia Division of Forestry Big Tree Program (https://wvforestry.com/big-tree-program/). That same stand is within 50 yards of the 4th largest Northern Red Oak in the state.
Fifteen years ago, my neighbor showed me that huge oak overlooking Camp Horseshoe. Over the years I have learned that almost everyone in the area has visited that tree sometime in their life. That introduction by my neighbor started my love affair with the forest grove that would later be tagged as Stand R-45 in the Forest Service plans to clear-cut 3,500 acres in the Horseshoe Run and Clover Run watersheds. Portions of the grove overlook Horseshoe Run, where a branch of the Seneca Trail ran to the Indian village at Holly Meadows on the Cheat River. The trees in the grove range up to 260 years old with many oaks, maples and hemlocks over 200 years old.
The trees in this stand have a long history. In 1765, the then young saplings looked over the Iroquois’s Seneca Trail or Great Indian Warpath (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Indian_Warpath). This footpath was part of the Indian trade routes through the Appalachians. In 1861, already nearly 100 years old, these same trees looked over the troops of the Confederate Army as they retreated up Horseshoe Run from their losses at the battle of Corrick’s Ford on July 13 (https://www.hmdb.org/Photos5/530/Photo530934o.jpg). During the Great Cutover of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, these trees somehow escaped the axes, and the fires that followed that logging. One wonders how these trees escaped the fires and logging that cleared so much of West Virginia, until you climb the very steep trail that leads to the grove and realize how difficult it was to cut these West Virginia hills. Over the years I have learned that there are two places where one might find incredibly old trees– along property lines and at sites that are exceedingly difficult to access. The grove that the Forest Service dubbed Stand R-45 certainly fits the second bill.
From my first introduction to the ancient red oak honored by the community, my interest in the grove led to many trips to visit the oak and explore the surrounding slopes, ridges and hollows. Some of my children’s earliest wanderings in the forest were on my shoulders, exploring the trees of the area. The Forest Service’s 2021 proposal to clear-cut 120 stands totaling 3,500 acres in the area kick-started my concern for the loss of these ancient beings. What had been a recreational interest in large trees in our area became a race to convince the Forest Service that the oldest of these stands should not be cut. Over approximately 11 years of wandering the steep slopes in and around Stand R-45 we documented hundreds of large old trees, including 3 that qualified for the state list of “big trees”. To date, we have measured approximately 200 trees that are more than 200 years old and there are more groves nearby that we just have not had time to get to yet.
Despite our successes, the Forest Service has not acknowledged that the grove we have focused much of our effort on, Stand R-45, is ‘Old Growth”. But we continue our efforts to fully document the old trees, structure and function of the stand. We suspect that the definition of old growth used by the Monongahela National Forest is focused on coniferous stands and erroneously equates old growth with undisturbed or virgin forest. Such a definition does not recognize that there is no such thing as undisturbed forest; it is just a question of how long it has been since the last disturbance. It is curious that despite the Monongahela being dominated by hardwoods, the Forest Service has yet to acknowledge any hardwood old growth in the National Forest. As we continue collecting data on the age of the trees, species diversity, canopy complexity and the substantial number of large, downed logs and standing snags, we hope the Forest Service will eventually recognize that hardwood old growth does in fact occur.
The effort to save these big old trees and the ecosystems they support has been rewarding. The number of people and organizations that came together to advocate for older forests has been impressive, and the opportunities the effort has provided has been a gift. I particularly want to thank my neighbors who have supported these trees for many, many years. Unfortunately, one of their primary concerns, clear-cutting steep slopes and the resulting flooding, was not resolved by the Forest Service’s final decision. (Approximately 70% of the proposed 117 clear-cuts are to be on slopes of 40-65% grade, i.e., classified as steep or very-steep by the Forest Service.) Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (WVHC), the Friends of Blackwater Canyon (https://www.saveblackwater.org/upper-cheat), West Virginians for Public Lands, and many other state conservation groups for raising awareness across the state. The fate of these trees was even raised to the national level by groups such as the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Climate Forest Coalition and the Old Growth Forest Network. While we did not save all the old forest beings we hoped, the trees on these 120 acres shall remain. Today they represent a small remnant of old forests that have seen many more years than any of us ever will. With the March decision by the Forest Service, they may outlive us all.
As we have over the past few summers, we plan to organize hikes to see the big trees in and around Stand R-45. Here is a chance to not only see some of the largest and oldest trees in West Virginia, but also to walk the paths used by Tribal peoples before the founding of this country and by soldiers during our War Between the States. Keep an eye on the WVHC’s calendar and the Facebook page of Speak4Trees2 for announcements of upcoming hikes. Hope to see you then!