Autumn Color at Conkle's Hollow State Nature Preserve

Fall coming to southeast Ohio is a moment I look forward to all year long.  It's a bittersweet moment at its core as another growing season has come to its inevitable end but the brief flux of color across the region's rolling, contiguously forested landscape makes winter's impending return seem not so rough.  Since moving down to the Athens area over five years ago, I've made sure to make the most out of living in such a spectacular part of the state.  In order to accomplish that there is one pilgrimage that must be made each and every October to a particular sandstone gorge in the renowned Hocking Hills region.

Looking into the bottleneck of Conkle's Hollow from the eastern gorge rim trail

If I've visited Conkle's Hollow state nature preserve once, I've visited it a dozen and a half times at just about every time of the year.  Its sheer sandstone cliff faces and bluffs rise precipitously from the cool, lush hemlock hollow below and is rimmed by an acidic mixed oak and pine forest community.  The views from the gorge rim trail are breathtaking no matter the season but let's not kid ourselves, nothing can best autumn's scene.

Incredible autumn color from all direcitons

The exposed layer of bedrock at Conkle's Hollow and the rest of the region is known as Black Hand sandstone and was laid down over 350 million years ago when an immense, warm shallow sea covered what is current-day Ohio.  The fine sand grains and rock particles that settled at the ocean's river deltas compacted under an ever-increasing amount of pressure and weight from the younger layers of sediment on top.  As the tectonic plates continued to shift and move over the Earth's surface, the eastern edge of the North American continent was forced up as the Appalachians formed, leaving Ohio high and dry and exposed to the elements.  Over the following hundreds of millions of years the softer surrounding bedrock material has been weathered away by the forces of water, ice and wind to reveal the resistant Black Hand sandstone.  Despite its heightened resiliency even it is not immune to the forces of time and erosion and has slowly but surely been carved out into the unique and fascinating gorges, promontories and rock houses we see today.

Stunted and gnarled Virginia pine along the very edges of the sandstone cliff edges and rock faces

When delving into the botanical aspect of any habitat or ecosystem it's important to know the geologic history and background for the corresponding area.  Geology and botany are intimately tied together and produce predictable results depending on the conditions present.  Conkle's Hollow's gorge rim is a harsh and acidic environment with very shallow, fast-draining soils and exposed bedrock with plant associations pretty similar to the Dolly Sods heath barrens I blogged about in the post prior to this.  Tree species such as chestnut/white/scarlet/post oaks, hemlock, Virginia pine, sourwood and serviceberry dominate with a shrub/herbaceous layer comprised of xeric acidophiles like mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), hillside blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum), teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens), trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens), striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata), partridgeberry (Mitchella repens) and sawbrier (Smilax rotundifolia).

Unbeatable fall colors at Conkle's Hollow

As the story goes, Conkle's Hollow got its name from an inscription once visible on the western wall of the gorge that read -W.J. Conkle 1797-.  I can't imagine trying to rappel my way down the rock faces of the hollow with the technology and advancements of today, let alone over 200 years ago.  Whomever Conkle was, they certainly had more guts and adventure than I do; no way would I have been able to do such a task.  One wrong move and you're leaving your bones behind at the bottom of the hollow instead of your name!

Sheer sandstone cliffs rising nearly 200 feet above the valley floor

The sandstone cliffs look as imposing as they are impressive and boast vertical heights of nearly 200 feet, making it arguably the deepest hollow in the entire state.  The small creek that gently flows on the valley floor will continue to deepen the hollow millimeter by millimeter as time marches on and only add to its impressive physical relief statistics.  The mixture of evergreen hemlocks and bright yellow birch and tulip poplar at the bottom contrast nicely against the scarlet and orange of the oaks above the pale sandstone during the fall season.

Looking south out of the mouth of Conkle's Hollow and across the Hocking Hills

The fall foliage show has been exceptionally good this year with cool temperatures and wet weather sticking around for most of the month.  The leaves were nearing the end of their peak earlier this week during my visit but there's still time to get out there and see the views and scenery for yourself before it's done and gone for another year.  The view above is one I've admired and soaked in on numerous occasions and one that seems to get better upon each renewed visit.  No roads, no buildings, no powerlines, just ridge after ridge of contiguous forest ensconced in autumn's perfection.

Close up of one of Conkle's most prolific sandstone promontories 

I often tend to favor posts that take the reader places they've rarely, if ever been or perhaps never even heard of but sometimes it's hard to resist sharing a location that just about everyone is familiar with.  Conkle's Hollow is well-known, well-loved and certainly well-visited, as I can't recall a time when the parking lot hasn't had a majority of its spaces filled.  I'm thankful such a timeless and quintessential landscape for the region is preserved and protected as a state nature preserve and open for the public's enjoyment.  I highly encourage anyone reading to get out and visit for yourselves before winter clinches its cold and icy grip over Ohio; whether it's just one of a long string of visits or your first time!

Early Spring on Daughmer Savanna

Of all the natural landscapes and ecosystems Ohio had to offer around the time of European settlement, none have seen the same systematic destruction and removal quite like our prairies.  Over 99% of Ohio's indigenous tall grass prairie has succumbed to the activities of man or the inevitable march of natural succession.  You thought over 90% of our state's wetlands being lost was bad, the prairies have statistically had it worse.  Originally representing nearly 5% of Ohio's vegetation at the time of settlement, these open, grass-dominated ecosystems are relatively new to Ohio from a geologic viewpoint and came into existence around 4000-8000 years ago during a shift to a warmer, drier climate.  This change disrupted and discouraged reforestation's northward advancement post-Wisconsin glaciation and allowed the western tall grass prairie to migrate east through Illinois, Indiana and into Ohio.  Gradually the climate returned to a more cool and wet cycle and forestation picked back up as the prairies were invaded and recolonized by the trees.

Considering how fast open grassland can revert to shrubs-saplings and on into young forest, we have to thank in large part the Native American tribes that lived in western/northern Ohio for keeping our prairies around.  They played a huge role in maintaining these grassland habitats with their frequent use of fire.  They realized wild game was more attracted to the lush new-growth of burned areas and the open environment made hunting them easier and more successful.  This led to a consistent fire regime that kept the woody invaders at bay and a key aspect to their livelihoods healthy and intact.  Naturally-occurring fires from the likes of lightning strikes did occur historically but hardly at the same interval and efficiency as the native people's.  Without their influence, I highly doubt any substantial tracts of prairie would have persisted up until the time of settlement.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to gaze out at an almost never-ending expanse of grasses and the occasional tree with herds of grazers like bison and elk spread out across its vastness, let alone seeing a hot and intense prairie fire speed across the ground with flames licking 15-20 feet into the sky.  Sigh...too many invaluable things have been lost to the sands of time.

The first pioneers found these open tracts of tall warm season grasses, occasional oaks and hickories, and colorful summer wildflowers to be quite formidable and were initially ignored for their lack of trees.  The early thought was any land that didn't support forest was infertile and not worth the time or effort to farm.  If only that assumption had never been questioned.  Once that mindset was reversed and the prairie's deep, rich black soil was bitten into by the steel plow and drained with tile, it wasn't long before it had all but disappeared and turned into modern prairie monocultures of corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Botanists Rick Gardner and Dan Boone walking through Daughmer Prairie in early spring

However, that less than 1% of indigenous prairie hanging around is still out there and few, if any place(s) are better and more representative than Daughmer Prairie Savanna state nature preserve in Crawford county. Daughmer occurs in the former grandeur of the Sandusky Plains that once sprawled out over 200,000 acres in north-central Ohio. Only 70 or so acres of the Sandusky Plains remain and nearly half of its vestiges reside in Daughmer Prairie.

The photos that accompany this post were taken in late March of 2012 during a visit by your blogger and good friends in Ohio's Division of Natural Areas and Preserves' chief botanist Rick Gardner and the oft-mentioned and brilliant Daniel Boone.  Spring came fast and early that year and I recall this day, despite the chilled and gloomy look of the landscape, being in the 80s and a sweat-inducer, which is something I was certainly not used to so early in the season.  The darkened skies may be still and silent in the photos but lightning and thunder was discharged out of the swirling and churning blackness during our foray into the savanna and it made for a very memorable and electric experience.

Early spring on Daughmer Prairie Savanna as a line of thunderstorms move in.

Daughmer isn't what you would label as a true-blue tall grass prairie ecosystem but rather a prairie savanna due to its host of numerous bur oak trees.  Savannas existed at the tension zones between the prairie and recolonizing forest as well as in areas where fire did enough to drive off most woody/shrubby invaders but left some of the more fire-resistant trees behind to grow and mature.  The bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) is the classic and quintessential tree of Ohio's prairies and savannas with white oak (Q. alba), post oak (Q. stellata) and shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) the other common denizens.  In wet-saturated areas you might see more swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) while in the sandier, more xeric and acidic savanna (e.g. the Oak Openings) black oak (Q. velutina) dominate.

Dan standing with a mighty bur oak

Some of Daughmer Savanna's bur oaks approach and exceed three and four feet in diameter and have been aged to over 250 years old.  A few more than likely experienced a trial by fire as saplings during the last waning rounds of burns set by the Native Americans before their removal and/or demise at the hands of European settlement. Bur oak's thick, rigid bark can stand up to the fast but intensely hot grassland fires and often times boast scars as proof of their tenacity and brawn.  Without any significant competition from neighboring trees, oaks on the savannas grew stout and sprawled their limbs outward in a wide sweeping fashion, their leaves' photosynthesis factories humming along at peak.  Standing under these behemoths with the summer sun streaming through the emerald canopies and the robust scent of earth on the air is as refreshing a moment as exists in the natural world.

Seasonal wetlands and prairie potholes occur in parts of Daughmer and only add to the diversity of the site.

Despite looking and more-or-less being flat and unchanging as can be, Daughmer has a surprising variance in its hydrology.  On the more dry and well-drained soils you find a typical mixture of warm-season grasses such as big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) mixed with forbs and sedges such as the rare Eleocharis compressa and Carex bicknellii.  Moving into more moist-wet prairie finds an association of prairie cordgrass (Spartina pectinata) or bluejoint (Calamogrostis canadensis) and muhly-grass (Muhlenbergia mexicana) pocketed with seasonal wetland sedge meadows and small prairie pothole marshes.  Looking out across its landscape and you wouldn't think a place with "only grass" could be home to such a diversity of plant and animal life.

Rick standing in the shadows of the approaching storm

Prairie savanna is not only incredibly rare in the state of Ohio but is considered a globally rare community as well, which makes protecting these places all the more important.  Thankfully, the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves recently purchased this plot of land to give it a much more secure and bright future.  Daughmer's soils have never been plowed and remain a virgin of its steel to this day, but was used extensively for grazing cattle and sheep in the past.  This led to an extirpation of many summer wildflower species and opened the door for non-native invasives like teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) to establish but was a small price to pay for keeping this gem around and impressively intact otherwise.

Daughmer was recently dedicated as a state nature preserve and is open to the public year-round.  I encourage anyone with an interest in our natural history and a desire for a small glimpse back into the past to pay it a visit regardless of the time of year.  You can find directions to the preserve HERE.

A point worth mentioning here is that when the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves bought this land, the money used was solely from DNAP's donated income tax check-off funds.  In other words, you, the citizens and nature-caring/conscious/loving/appreciating/etc. people of Ohio all came together to make this possible.  Since its inception in 1983, over $16 million dollars have been donated and used to protect our state's natural treasures!

Opposite Seasons at Gallagher Fen

A few months back when this overly cold and precipitous winter was just beginning to sink its teeth into Ohio's landscape, your blogger decided to pay a visit to one of his most cherished natural areas in the entire state for a new experience of an old favorite.  I've lost track on the amount of times I've visited Gallagher Fen state nature preserve during the humid, wildflower-filled summer and early fall months but a winter hike had always escaped my mind.

Looking east across the western fen opening backed by a glacial esker

Gallagher Fen is home to some of the best prairie fen habitat left in Ohio, as well as nice examples of bur oak savanna and mature upland oak/hickory forest.  Much like the area's numerous other fen openings and complexes, Gallagher Fen owes its existence and future to the continued flow and percolation of cold, alkaline groundwater to the surface.  Following the last glacial event around 10-12,000 years ago, this region of Ohio's old waterways and river valleys were left full of glacial till and were subsequently filled with meltwater. These ancient, saturated subterranean river valleys are what we call aquifers and are the lifeblood for west central Ohio's fens to this day.

Standing in the western fen meadow looking east across the marl meadow, backed by bur oak savanna on the esker

The glaciers didn't just influence the hydrology of Gallagher Fen but the topography and geology as well.  What appears to be a hill at the back of the western fen meadow pictured above is actually a long, winding ridge of stratified gravel and sand called an esker.  Eskers, such as the one found here are formed during a glacier's recession as gushing meltwater from in/under the ice sheet deposits the rocky debris along its course.

Aerial photograph of Gallagher Fen with the glacial esker outlined in brown

The aerial photograph above shows the preserve's two fen openings and also highlights the glacial esker that forms the northern backbone for the west and east fen meadows.  The 55 degree, calcium-carbonate laden groundwater seeps from the base of the esker and flows down into the bowl-like fen meadows where other small rivulets come together to form a spring-fed stream that drains out the bottoms of both openings.

Bur oak savanna perched on the esker above the eastern fen meadow

Perched above the cold, saturated fen openings on the slopes and crest of the gravel esker is the curious habitat of a bur oak savanna.  The rocky, shallow, fast-draining soils atop the esker created an ideal situation for prairie plants and their accompanying bur, white, and post oaks to occur and persist.  My newly-minted winter experience allowed a better appreciation and observation of the gnarled, venerable oaks rising above the beige sea of desiccated and dispersed seed heads underneath.  These trees have undoubtedly seen their fair share of winters thaw into spring.

Queen-of-the-prairie blooming in the fen meadows against a bur oak background

Summer is hands down the best time to experience our alkaline prairie fen environments and it's not hard to surmise why. From early June into September their mucky meadows are alive with wildflowers, grasses, and sedges all going about their reproductive duties, completely oblivious to their Homo sapiens observers and admirers.

As my boots sank into the marl and muck of the deadened sedge meadows during my winter escape into Gallagher, I realized I had a unique opportunity on this isolated occasion to compare and contrast this spectacular ecosystem between the two extremes of summer and winter.  So upon my return home, I did my best to find opposite season photographs of the same corresponding capture and I came away rather pleased with the results that you can see below.

Looking west atop the west fen meadow's esker among the summer prairie wildflowers

One of the best views in the 200+ acre preserve is located atop the esker looking west across the western fen meadow.  The bowl-like depression of the meadow is more evident from this vantage point and allows you to immerse yourself in a medley of purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), and whorled rosinweed (Silphium trifoliatum) come July.  Other botanical oddities and rarities like the state-threatened prairie thimbleweed (Anemone cylindracea) and the state-endangered prairie violet (Viola pedatifida) occur along the gravel-ridden slopes of the bur oak savanna as well.

View of the perched bur oak savanna in the east fen meadow

It's not everyday you can visit a spot in Ohio, or many other places where two unique and equally fascinating habitats of such variety and contrast like fens and savannas merge.  The sludgy, saturated soils of the fen meadow support fen Indian plantain (Arnoglossum platagineum), sticky tofieldia (Triantha glutinosa), wand-lily (Zigadenus elegans), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), queen-of-the-prairie (Filipendula rubra), nodding ladies'-tresses (Spiranthes cernua), and Ohio goldenrod (Oligoneuron ohioense) right up to the base of the esker and its groundwater seeps.

The stark contrast of the prairie dock in the western fen meadow and marl bed.

Perhaps the most impressive floral display to be found at Gallagher is the annual summer flaunting of prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) in the western fen meadow's marl bed.  Hundreds, if not thousands of flowering stems rise over your head and are adorned with golden yellow stars that shine in the July and August sun.  It's truly a sight to behold and take in with your own eyes.  It's hard to believe so much green, life, and growth pictured on the left turns to ashes come winter, only to come back to life in the waxing temperatures and sunlight of summer.

You may be wondering how a plant species so adapted to dry, barren-like soil and habitat conditions like the prairie dock could survive, let alone thrive in the saturated muck of a marl bed.  This odd occurrence is due to the fact that plants have a hard time absorbing water and nutrients from the very chilled water of the fen meadow and thus react as if living in a more dry, drought-prone environment.  This is why so many of our fen complexes in west central Ohio have a strong prairie association in them, hailing back to the influence of the prairie peninsula some 4-8,000 years ago during a period of a warmer/drier climate.

Looking east out across the western fen opening and its spring-fed channels

If looking west across the western fen meadow from atop the esker is one of Gallagher's best spectacles, then the same must be said for the reciprocal of that view.  The great expanse of sedge meadow, raised hummocks scattered among the rivulets, and mucky marl bed are home to dozens of intriguing and rare plants such as grass of parnassus (Parnassia glauca), twigrush (Cladium mariscoides), blue-leaved willow (Salix myricoides), Carex flava, C. viridula, C. sterilis, C. buxbaumii, tufted hairgrass (Deschampsia cespitosa), Kalm's lobelia (Lobelia kalmii), round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), low nutrush (Scleria verticillata), horned bladderwort (Utricularia cornuta), and Canadian burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis) for starters.  An advantage to my mid-December visit was being able to see the esker much more clearly and defined at the back of the fen meadow. Lush growth and greenery block the view most other times of the year.

Realistically, I could do a whole series of posts dedicated to the beauty and biological diversity of this gem of a nature preserve but this at least gives you a beginner's look at what an incredible and mesmerizing site Gallagher Fen is.  Despite some confusion, this preserve is indeed open to the public nowadays and I could not encourage you to get out and immerse yourself in its wonders more, regardless of the time of year.  Which is something I can officially say with validity after my winter excursion into its depths!