The October ice storm was the most severe disturbance of Oliver's Woods since the December 2007 ice storm. I returned to the Woods this morning to see the aftermath. The autumn ice and 2-3 strong windstorms subsequently, brought down numerous very large upper main stems of trees. Pecans were particularly impacted. I entered the Woods via the NW Entrance. It took some work with a chainsaw to clear heavy, tangled branches blocking the entrance. I also filled a trash bag with contents of an earlier trash bag containing spent personal protective gear, disposable medical gloves, styrofoam cups, plastic water bottles and such, probably stolen by dogs or coyotes, ripped open and scattered there. Good to have that gone.
I carried the saw to the massive cottonwood - one of the three largest in the Woods, that had fallen this summer and blocked the main NW Trail. The alternate path I earlier had cleared bypassing the blockage this autumn, was itself now blocked by a tangle of debris beneath a huge upper trunk sheered off a pecan, one of the largest pecans in the Woods. I saw that a simple reroute of the trail could return to the original trail path with some clearing of large diameter cottonwood branches and other tangled debris. After a few hours I had cleared and reopened the NW Trail past the NW Pond, past the fallen cottonwood, to East Pond and east to Hackberry Alley and out the North Trail. Lots of pulling and hauling of branches. The new return to the old trail is an improvement because it now goes to and along the massive, partly elevated fallen cottonwood. This is a sight to ponder and absorb.
With a half day of work, I cleared trails in the NW section. I need to do the same from the NE Gate through the Tree Loop and eastern side of the Woods; and from the SW Gate and the southern end of the Woods. If I ended my efforts to maintain the foot paths, the Woods would close itself off into the wild, mostly inaccessible tangle, that it was naturally twenty years ago when I first walked there.
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