Nature: Early Spring Hikes Offer Hidden Beauty

Early Spring Hikes Offer Hidden Beauty

By Tom Springer It may not look like a real waterfall. There’s no Tahquamenon torrent, only an elfi n vertical drop of maybe 15 inches. Yet the icy rush and roil of Trout Run near the Kalamazoo Nature Center sounds multitudes larger as it reverberates up the ravines of Coopers Glen. I recorded a 19-second clip of Trout Run “falls” during a recent hike and it grows richer and more nuanced with each replay. That’s the beauty of a winter or early spring hike. It concentrates our senses in ways that the green sensory overload of spring or summer does not. With the forest shorn of its foliage, you can see the bones of the earth revealed. How glaciers sculpted the morainal hills along the Kalamazoo River. How various tree species – sugar maple and tulip poplar, hop hornbeam and eastern hemlock – grow best in the moisture gradients and soil types best suited to their kind.

You can see, too, what form the trees take as they twist away from the shade of fellow trees and reach ever upward toward the life-giving pulse of sunlight. The cold seasons also offer a good time to identify trees without their leaves on. Each species has distinct features that are easy enough to learn: the burnt potato chip bark of the wild black cherry; the almost humorous duck-bill buds of the tulip poplar. And with snow cover, the delicate calligraphy of animal tracks tells its own story of prey and survival. Upon winter’s pages of white, the comings and goings of even the most secretive animals, such as mink and bobcat, become an open book for the observant hiker.

There are 16 trails at the Nature Center that lead across 1,400 acres of woods, wetlands and prairies. It worthwhile to wander them all, but it’s also good to fi nd a favorite. A trail you can visit again and again, to see its beauty and curiosities unfold across the seasons. For that, the Fern Valley Trail is one worth knowing.

In February or early March, the “fi ddleheads” of spring ferns are still curled tight in the chilled ground. By spring and summer this trail features some of KNC’s most beautiful wildfl owers. The Fern Valley Trail is also home to KNC’s Sugar Maple Grove where thousands usually visit each year to learn the art and history of maple syrup making. This March, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, KNC will offer a scaled down version of its popular Maple Sugar Festival over two weekends is March. Visit NatureCenter.org to learn more. One striking feature of the Fern Valley Trail is the damage caused by the Emerald Ash Borer. This forest pest has killed dozens of healthy ash trees here. They lay strewn in the forest like so many giant chopsticks. The bleached trunks of those that remain have shed their bark in tatters. On the bare trunks, look for the spaghetti-noodle maze of tunnels made by the “EAB.” It’s the handiwork of this invasive insect (thought to have been brought on wooden shipping pallets from China) that stops the fl ow of nutrients and kills the trees where they stand. But in nature, what dies is never lost. To be sure, plenty of tornadoes, ice storms and other calamities have rent this forest since the last Ice Age. So, in their wisdom, Nature Center staff have let the ash do what dead trees do best: slowly decay to regenerate the forest with their mulch and nutrients. The downed trunks retain runoff on hilly slopes that could cause erosion, and what looks messy to humans actually provides great habitat for snakes, salamanders woodpeckers and more. And now, a new generation of maples, hickory and beech have shot toward the sky to capitalize on the boon of excess sunlight once commandeered by the ash. There’s plenty of other stories to learn on the trails at KNC. To see for yourself, download a trail map at www.naturcenter.org Or support the Adopt a Trail Program to help maintain our trails today -- and for many cold and warm seasons to come. Tom Springer is grants manager at the Kalamazoo Nature Center and author of “The Star in the Sycamore” and “Looking for Hickories.” Photos courtesy Bill Krasean.