PA Shiprock Nature Preserve

 #44   2022 52-Hike Challenge: Shiprock Nature Preserve: 1 mile

This ridiculously short hike (to me) of one mile turned into two hours of mucking around one of Lancaster Conservancy's smallest preserves. It was part work/ part hike as circled the preserve to look for landmarks and interesting sights that are visible year-round to hikers, primarily children. It's part of a project to explore each of the Conservancy's preserves where a mile to three mile hiking loop can be made to introduce families to the "Art of Seeing," a method of nature exploration developed by American naturalist John Burroughs.  

Small parking area on Shiprock Road

Burroughs taught us that to see - to really see - was naturalist's best tool for understanding the natural world around them. He also lamented that very few people could actually utilize the potential of seeing the natural world, that to an untrained eye the world is all of a single color and the landscape of a single dimension. For his entire career and long life as an author and teacher, he concentrated on teaching people - particularly children - how to really observe, "How to See." 

The storied shiprocks

Leaving the parking area heading uphill, my lungs were tested right away with a steep climb. On the rolling blue blazed trail, "Why do you think this area is called Shiprock?" I asked my stand-in 5 year old, Amos the Coonhound. I didn't expect an answer until we came upon the bow and stern shaped outcrops of blue-gray quartzite. In the language of all hounds, his sniffing all around the low ledges resulted in finding some burrows of some small rodents and a thorough investigation around the prows of three, maybe four "ships."  

Gouged ravine

This is a good place to look at erosional ravines. The slope is significant and run-off from unprotected agricultural fields (read: no cover crops) north of the preserve causes rapid drainage and downcutting through soft sediments that fill the valley. These landforms are not ancient artifacts of geologic processes but modern failures of humans to protect vulnerable soils.  Anytime you find a deep V-shaped valley like this, it signals problems. As we step-slipped down the steep trail into and out of the V, I asked my 5 year old "What could have caused this and why isn't there a stream down here?" Amos looked at me like I was nuts and helped pull me out of the pit.

Heavy erosion damage in the V

So far I had two excellent features to look for and was thinking about how to turn the questions into a diagramming lesson when all of a sudden Amos hollered. He hollered and hollered and hollered, but I have no idea at what. It was cool though to hear his voice echo off the steep valley sides. This startled him and he stopped. Thank goodness, because my ears were ringing. 

A sentinel White Oak

No one's ever asked about why I keep a black piece of electrical tape wrapped around Amos' 9' leash measured at 3' from the handle. Well now they know. We approached a huge White Oak, surely one of the oldest trees in the preserve, and we measured the circumference around with the leash. Amos has done this so many times that when I say "Let's measure" he immediately starts to walk around whatever it is. I know he can't do math and he has no fingers to use the calculator on my phone, so I helped him. We measured the tree at about four and a half feet from the ground to be 15 feet around or 180 inches. 

Divide 180 by 3.1416 (this is where I had to help) and we calculated the tree's diameter at 57 inches  across. I consulted my tree growth factor chart that I keep taped inside my little notebook for White Oak and multiplied 57 by 5 to estimate the tree's age at 286 years. This is a conservative estimate, however, so figure this specimen may well be 300+ years old, since it is growing in a very fertile spot with good sun and rich soil. 

My hiking pole is set at 4.5 feet high for circumference measurement.

Just for fun we measured a few of the huge Tulip Poplar trees on the same rich soil ridge and found that they spanned between 75 and 125 years old (with a growth factor for their species of 3). The White Oak certainly was the oldest on the ridge if not in the entire preserve. Happy with his measurements, Amos pulled me down the hill and back across the V-shaped ravine. 

Cabin chimney

I decided not to make up a question about the very obvious cabin chimney. Too easy. So we continued on and started to climb out of the valley at almost a mile. We spotted a Beech that was showing signs of great stress as it was growing clusters of short stems, an emergency measure for a tree that has been destabilized or damaged. "What is causing this tree stress?" I asked my five year old as I studied the stems and the tree's surroundings. There were two large dead standing trunks that were leaning into the Beech, causing it to almost uproot. I thought Amos might catch that but, no. I think his attention span had played out by now and he knew we were headed back to the truck where the snacks were waiting.

 

Stress!

We cannot all find the same things in Nature. 

She is all things to all men...In her are "all manners of tastes," science, art, poetry, utility, and good in all. The botanist has one pleasure in her, the ornithologist another, the explorer another, the walker another, and the sportsman another.; what all may have is the refreshment and exhilaration which come from a loving and intelligent scrutiny of her manifold works. 

- John Burroughs, Riverby (1904)

Notes

The Intown Hawk has a good set of growth rates charts that are averaged between street tree rates and wild tree growth rates. https://intownhawk.com/estimate-tree-age/

Shiprock Preserve is a small preserve under 40 acres and a good choice for hiking with little ones. https://www.lancasterconservancy.org/preserves/shiprock-woods/