Bill Hatcher Photography

Why do People Climb Trees?

After Melbourne's devastating fires of Black Saturday, that killed  mainland Australia's tallest known trees, tree hunters like Brett Mifsud and others were on the lookout to discover new giant trees in Australia.  I joined them last week to climb a newly discovered giant tree in a forest miraculously left untouched by the 2009 fires. The tree discovered this year by Brett and named Black Beard is a remnant tree, one of just a few scattered survivors, of the 1939 fires that swept through Victoria and the trees of Toolangi State Forest.

 

Brett led a group of four tree climbers and myself into the forest north of Melbourne. The trip was intended to make an accurate height and volume measurement of this giant. When we reached the tree it would take the team half a day of rigging rope, climbing and measuring to confirm if the tree would set a new record for an Australian giant. The measurements are made using an actual tape measure from the top of the tree to the ground and making many trunk and limb diameter measurements as well.

 

 

Black Beard is massive and distinct from the surrounding smaller trees that germinated after the 1939 fire. The  trunk of Black Beard has a diameter just off the ground of about 12 meters. The photo above is of a climber 10 meters off the ground. The image below is about 60 meters up in Black Beard. This eucalyptus mountain ash is estimated by Brett to be about 400-450 years old.

 
 
Tree climbers in this group have many reasons for climbing trees, but they all agree they share a passion for exploring the forest and climbing the biggest and tallest trees.

 

 

In this photo Brett ascends the tree past curtains of hanging bark a feature that inspired him to name this tree.

 By the end of the day Black Beard  measured to be 72 meters tall and having a volume of about 230 cubic meters. This does not make Black Beard  Australia's biggest tree, but it's discovery is significant and adds to the record of living giant trees in Australia and the ancient remnant giants in Toolangi State Forest. According to Brett there are still more giants out there waiting for discovery. 

 

 

Repeat photography at Wallaby Creek, Victoria

In February 2009 much of the forest north and east of Melbourne burned during what is called Black Saturday. The  forest of mountain ash eucalyptus in the highlands near Wallaby Creek was nearly killed to the last tree. Recently I had a chance to revist and photograph this forest after the fires. But the forest is regenerating in the curious way of mountain ash. New eucalyptus have sprouted from seeds dropped from the burned and dying trees. When the seeds germinated a few months after the fire the sprouts numbered 300 per square meter. Those sprouts  have now reached a height of 1.5 meters and number 80 per square meter. The trees will grow at this rapid rate for the next 80 years  before slowing. Perhaps offspring from the giant trees may once again  reach incredible heights.

This repeat photograph was of images I made eight years ago at Wallaby Creek. The assignment 8 years ago was to document an assessment of the mature mountain ash forest by a team of scientist. The survey also led to the measuring of several of the tallest trees in mainland Australia and the discovery that Wallaby Creek was the location of the tallest forest of flowering trees in the world. The photo being held up overlays the current burned forest. The prominent tree is a 90 meter giant called the Wallaby Giant. The Black Saturday fires killed all of Victorias known 90+ meter tall trees.

 

A year later the dead tree giants still stand, but with time they will fall to the ground victims of storms and decay. Much of the new growth will be crushed by the falling giants.

 

This is how Wallaby Creek, the forest of tall trees, looked before the fires.  Unless other tall trees are discovered, it will take 15 years before any tree in mainland Australia will break the magic barrier of 90 meters or 300 feet. It will take the trees in Wallaby Creek 100 years before they will again close in on this height. 

 
 

Live Web cam of Iceland eruption

I always enjoy looking at live camera feeds from remote positions around the world. The company Mila has several cameras directed on the eruption at Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland . You can click this link to view the eruption live.

 

 

 
 

Iceland volcanic eruptions and Mt. Katla

I just read the morning news in Reuters about the new activity at Iceland's most active volcano on the Eyjafallajokull icecap. As you probably have read a new eruption has sent up an ash cloud forcing the closing of airports as far away as in Britain and Europe. I was in this area this past summer. I've decided to post a few photos of the place here.

 

 Volcanologist are really worried that the nearby Mt. Katla might join this recent eruption. Mt. Katla lies under the neighbouring icecap of  Myrdalsjokull.  Mt Katla's last major eruption was in 1918 and scientist are worried that if it erupts it promises to be a major event. If you consider that Mt. Katla's crater measures 10 kms.(6.2 miles)  across it could be a very, very big eruption. If Mt. Katla does erupt, the outwash plain seen in the photo above will be under 10-40 feet of flood waters as the super heated magma melts the thick glacier ice.

 

The region east of Eyjafallajokull and Myrdalsjokul icecaps is very errie and stark and in my opinion quite beautiful. Everything is colored a volcanic black or grey except where moss and grasses have managed to grow. 

When Katla erupted in 1755 scientist estimated that the meltwater from the glacier produced a river flow estimated to be around 200,000 -400,000 cubic meters per second. (for Americans that's about 7.6-14.1  million cubic feet per second)  for comparison the combined average flows of Amazon, Mississippi, Nile and Yangtze Rivers is around 290,000 cms!  You can read about this in wikipedia. Fortunately Mt. Katla is close to the Southern coastline of Iceland so these destructive waters will not travel far. 

 

I am glad I went there when I did because even now all of the places seen in these photos, just a few kilometers down wind from the ash cloud,  are under a new layer of thick ash. Even if the volcano was to cease all activity right now these places would not return to last summers splendor for a few years. If Mt. Katla erupts then this region of Iceland will be transformed forever.