Old Growth

Hartwick Pines State Park, Grayling, Michigan. Hartwick Pines has the largest stand of old growth timber in Michigan, a fifty-acre grove which was deliberately preserved when the area was logged in the 1920s. The preserved stand was originally 87 acres, but has shrunk as the trees aged and died. It is, of course, still shrinking. The pine grove is a small, albeit treasured, part of an enormous, 9,600 acre, wilderness park.

Pennsylvania also has a "tall pines" state park, called Cook Forest, which Joan and I visited in 1999. The Pennsylvania park, which is similar in size but has much more old growth, seemed then to view its old pines as a doomed treasure. Michigan's park emphasizes rebirth, growth, and cycles in nature. A better perspective, methinks.

Both are very impressive places, and worth a visit.