Day 7 - Hartwick Pines

Directions from Mackinaw City to Hartwick Pines
Follow I-75 South
Exit at Hartwick Pines Rd  (M-93)
Follow signs to Hartwick Pines State Park
Estimated travel time  - 1.5 hours

Directions from Hartwick Pines to Grayling
Follow Hartwick Pines Rd back to I-75
Take I-75 South into Grayling
Estimated travel time - 15 minutes

Schedule of Events

Why visit Hartwick Pines State Park?
At first glance it may seem strange to be visiting Hartwick pines on a geoscience
related field trip.  It really seems as if it is merely a forest and that botanists would find
more useful information here than TIG students.  The geoscience features of a park such
as this are not as obvious, but they are important nonetheless.  From a geology aspect,
it is interesting to point out that as you walk along the trail at Hartwick Pines state park, you are
walking over glacial moraines.  Initially it seems like the trail winds along an ordinary hill, but
this hill is not ordinary.  We've stumbled across yet another remnant of those Pleistocene glaciers.

Hartwick Pines State Park

It is believed that some of the old growth pines residing at this park could be close to 350
years old.  Some of the tallest trees stand more than 150 feet high.  Many of the older trees
even measure 9-11 feet in circumference.  Many animal species inhabit the park
including turkey, white-tailed deer, bear, and bobcat.  But, many species were eliminated from
this area during the logging days.  These species include gray wolf, caribou, and wolverine.
 Use of area rivers to move logs also contributed to the loss
of the grayling, a fish once abundant in this area.

Much of what is now the Hartwick Pine State Park was logged off in the late 1800s.
Michigan was recognized as a logical place for logging in 1840 when the demand for
lumber became too much for New York and Maine.  Not only was Michigan covered with
white pine, the surface hydrology of the criss-crossing rivers made for excellent log
transportation.  The rivers moved the logs quickly and were a valuable means of transportation
during the summer months.  The lumber industry commonly produced more logs than
the rivers could handle resulting in log jams like the one on the Grand River pictured above.
The more snow that accumulated during the winter, the more melt water runoff in the
Spring and the more rivers were recharged.  Better recharge made it easier for rivers
to carry the logs to the sawmills.  In order to get logs where they needed to be, the river
had to be controlled.  Dams had to be built and broken by the log drivers.  It was also
the log drivers job to break up the log jams.  These processes significantly compromised
the natural river systems.  Habitats were destroyed for plants and animals alike, as
stated above.

Environmental concerns began to develop after loggers started vacating their camps and
moving to new locations to set up camp.  Loggers were basically clear cutting areas and then
leaving behind debris such as stumps and branches.  The barriers of erosion which once
stood were now gone and topsoil washed away.  As debris dried out it became a
serious fire hazard.  By the end of the drier summer months these fires often broke out,
sometimes engulfing uncut areas.  Fires like this prompted the first conservation attempts
at protecting one of Michigan's renewable resources,  the forest.

THE END

I hope this trip was educational for everyone and that some fun was had along the way.
Michigan is a wonderful place and we only scratched the surface of amazing things to see here.
If you have never visited "The Great Lakes State", I recommend that you do.

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