ku # 821 ~ Autumn color # 34
Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 05:15PM 
Micro-burst blow down LARGE ~ 5 Ponds Wilderness Area - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Micro-burst blow down SMALL ~ 5 Ponds Wilderness Area - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen15 years, ago an extremely powerful, violent, and destructive storm swept through the NW corner of the Adirondack PARK. The relatively brief storm downed thousands of trees covering over one million acres in the Adirondacks - the result of quite a number of microbursts. The area pictured above was the sight of one of the microbursts.
A few months after the storm, The Cinemascapist and The Landscapist set out to spend a few days backpacking in the 5 Ponds Wilderness Area. Unbeknownst to them, the area pictured above was a mere 1/2 mile from the trailhead and it was totally impassable - hundreds of mature trees were stacked like match sticks in a jumbled tangle that was 8-15 feet high. Scrambling to the top of the pile (at its western end), the pair realized that continued passage was not going to happen. So, they turned around and headed for a different area of the PARK.
FYI, The Landscapist was so utterly dumbstruck by the sight that, even though he had 2 cameras on his person, not a single picture was made. It should also be noted that The Cinemascapist wasn't interested in picture making at all at that time.
And, BTW, (r-l) that's The Cinemascapist, my ex wife, Hugo, the wife, and The Cinemascapist's the wife looking on in the above picture.
Reader Comments (1)
I wonder if that was from this same storm:
"- CHRISTMAS MOUNTAINS - on November 7, 1994, it was cold and windy on the Christmas Mountains in central New Brunswick. As the shortwood harvesters pulled down their trees, a dusting of snow fell gently to the ground. At about one o'clock, Brett Mahoney, the district superintendent for Repap -the company to whom most of the area is licensed - noticed that the wind suddenly began to swirl. Chatter began to filter across his radio saying that trees were falling everywhere. "Then you could hear it," said Mr. Mahoney. "Everybody got back to their half-tons for safety. Then I saw the trees coming down." For three hours, winds that exceeded 100 kilometers an hour ripped through the mountains, literally tearing vast areas of the forest from its roots. By four p.m., it was all over. "There were thousands of trees criss-crossed across the roads," said Mr. Mahoney. "Everything came to a halt - all our trucking, all our harvesting, everything." When it was all over, the devastation was unparalleled in the recorded history of New Brunswick. Over 30,000 acres of forest were hit by the wind storm, and more than 750,000 cords of wood lay on the ground - enough wood to keep all of the pulp mills in the Miramichi region running for two years; "