Mt. Moosilauke (1937) - Glencliff Trail Notes
". . . Most people who climb mountains have an interest in natural history, and few are fond of punishing themselves physically, yet when friends climb together it almost always amounts to a race to see who can get out of breath the quickest and worst. In the scramble, nature is overlooked. These notes are prepared for those who would like an excuse to spend an extra hour or two on the ascent, enjoying things.
The stony fields at the start of the trail can produce good crops of hay, corn and other staples. The clearings that you see were probably carved from an original forest of white pines, many over a hundred feet high and four feet thick. Where are they now? The ruined house nearby was built before this magnificent forest had been destroyed entirely, for it was in part paneled with boards between two and three feet wide. Its present rickety condition makes it dangerous to inspect the curious chimney and dutch ovens. There used to be much more cleared land around here.
The forest is closing in again. In addition to the characteristic birch-beech-maple-hemlock group, the nearby woods include old apples and poplars, cherry, ironwood, alder, mountain ash and other weed trees. The wild flowers here are common field and pasture species, such as Ox-eye daisies, Black-eyed susans, Buttercups, Tawny hawkweed, etc. Within a short space of time it is possible to locate the following birds: Redstart, Yellowthroat, Indigo bunting, Goldfinch, Purple finch, Chimney swift, Robin, Bluebird, Crow, Red-eyed vireo, and many another.
With minor exceptions, what you see here could be seen just as well in upland Virginia or Carolina. As you climb 3000 feet to the top of the mountain, the climatic change is so sharp it is almost as if you were taking a 1500-mile trip from the Carolina uplands to Labrador.From bottom to top you will pass through five distinct life zones:
1. Cultivated lowland, superficially much like that in the rest of New England or farther south.
2. "Green forest" of the Northeastern Hardwood type (birch-beech-maple-hemlock) such as is found along the coastal plain from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia and the Gaspe.
3. "Black Forest" of the Northern Coniferous type (Spruce-fir), like much of northern Ontario and Quebec.
4. Scrub spruce and fir, resembling a good deal of interior Labrador.
5. Alpine Zone above timberline, comparable in many respects with the treeless arctic pastures or Tundra, and the coast of Greenland and northern Labrador."
From "Glencliff Trail Notes" by William W. Ballard, pp. 544-579, The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.2). ©1999.
