Silver Creek Grove

Silver Creek Grove is just above Mountain Home, and I had never been to it, so I decided last weekend that it would be a good time to get up there and see it.  It is a small grove, with as far as I can see, no real champion trees in it however, since I was there, I decided to measure some of the typical largest that I could see, just to get an idea of their size.  The largest that I measured turned out to be about 15 k in volume and there are quite a few in the area that are a bit smaller than that. 

If you are looking for the champion specimens, this is not the grove for you, but otherwise it was a nice easy approx 2 mile walk on a dirt road past Hidden Falls in Mountain Home Grove to get in to it.  I saw no one else during the day's walk, so its not very much on the beaten path.  Once in the grove, there is a lot of underbrush that makes exploring it a bit difficult, however there is an old disused continuation of the road, not quite overgrown yet, that goes uphill parallel to the creek and provides a relatively clear overview of the grove.

The largest I saw seemed to be a reasonably thick-boled specimen that had broken off its top in the past, so was pretty short;  but with a new head on it of several small leaders coming forth.  Its nice thick fireplug shape gave it more volume than any the others in the grove, and I expect it must be older than the rest.  The number of trees in the below 15 feet category without hardly any real big champions makes me wonder if this relatively young demographic grove might have burned over nearly completely in the recent (like a few hundred to a thousand years) past.

 On the largest sequoia I measured in the grove I got a height of 182'  feet and a volume of 15,391 cubic feet.

Below is a pic of him and a couple other typical specimens that I took quick estimates of.

There was also a pretty similar tree to the Clothespin tree up in Nelder Grove that was split on the top by a lightning bolt many years ago.  It must have been hit in the middle of a downpour because the lightning just split the top of the tree but did not start a fire because there is no blackening or burn damage up in its top at the split.  This tree must have been hit relatively recently but amazingly the split really has not stopped its growth.  You can see two new leaders located on each side of the split.  Astounding the things that these trees can overcome.

Below are a couple pics of the the interesting split-topped Clothespin tree.

The first sequoia that you see coming in to the grove from the road is a nice specimen.  It looks like it has a lot of bark damage on its base from the scratchings of a bear.   I did a measurement on it and it comes out with the following specs:

Base Circumference:  39'
DBH:  9' 
Height:  228' 
Volume:  7,145 Cubic Feet

Not a champion tree, but a nice looking specimen in any case.