Speaking of exposed root balls

I drove about 100 miles yesterday to paddle in central Michigan. It was a perfect day with blue sky and a high temp around 70. Saw this and made me think about the recent thread around paddling under trees with exposed root balls. It’s a pretty small root ball for such a glorious tree!

Hanging on!

Evergreens have shallow roots that spread more horizontally. That’s why they topple over after every PNW rainstorm that saturates the soil. Where we used to live, tall trees downed across roads, powerlines, buildings, and vehicles were frequent occurrences.

The plant that can amass gargantuan rootballs for its size is the so-called Himalyan blackberry, an invasive form that actually is native to Armenia, not Himalaya.

When I see things similar to what’s shown in your photo, I stay far away from that tree!

The pines typically have a long tap root that holds up that root ball. You can see some of the long skinny ones. There’s likely a bigger one underneath.

Now threes that grow in the water spread out and stay shallow. Which makes a kind of root pancake.

One tree blowing over often takes several.

I was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1998 when the massive “horizontal tornado” straight line derecho storm came in from the west just before dawn on May 31. It knocked out power for days and toppled huge trees all over Kent County. Winds were measured at a steady 92 mph within the city and gusts topped 130. Within 2 hours four people were killed, 250 plus homes were destroyed and the estimated damages approached $200 million. The soft sand and peri-glacial loose gravels that makes up most of the topsoil of southern Michigan gave no stable anchor to the big trees. We drove around the day after the winds abated to see countless evergreens and even 100 year old hardwoods toppled, many of them right through the roofs of adjacent homes. Riverside Park on the Northwest side along the Grand River was devastated – it looked like some 100 foot tall giant had come through and plucked them out like pulling carrots… Some of the upended root balls were nearly as big as the crowns of the trees. My friends who had pickup trucks and chainsaws made a lot of money over the next two weeks driving around and offering to clear downed trees from people’s properties. There was no shortage of firewood in the area the following winter.

My 100 year old balloon framed house in SE GR stood fast, as did the three massive oak trees (one white oak and two pin oak) that towered over it. I did end up with quite a collection of my neighbors’ stuff including deck furniture and trash cans collected along the chain link fence at one side of my corner lot front yard. One of my neighbors found his Coleman canoe on top of the garage of the house next door. I remember being in the midst of hurricanes from my childhood in Boston, Massachusetts, but that derecho was far more terrifying.

https://www.mlive.com/weather/2016/05/two_hours_of_weather_terror_a.html

@pikabike said:
Evergreens have shallow roots that spread more horizontally. That’s why they topple over after every PNW rainstorm that saturates the soil. Where we used to live, tall trees downed across roads, powerlines, buildings, and vehicles were frequent occurrences.

The plant that can amass gargantuan rootballs for its size is the so-called Himalyan blackberry, an invasive form that actually is native to Armenia, not Himalaya.

When I see things similar to what’s shown in your photo, I stay far away from that tree!
It’s hard to stay far away when you’re on a creek.

@Overstreet said:
The pines typically have a long tap root that holds up that root ball. You can see some of the long skinny ones. There’s likely a bigger one underneath.

Now threes that grow in the water spread out and stay shallow. Which makes a kind of root pancake.

One tree blowing over often takes several.

Cool pictures.

Willowleaf -we had 70 mph sustained winds around 5-6 years ago in SW Michigan. ALL the trees went horizontal and we ended up with a yard full of downed trees. We had one perfectly healthy pine in our front yard snap off about 15-20 feet above the ground…an 18-20 inch diameter healthy/sappy tree just snapped like a pencil. Now when we get high winds (all too frequently) the dog is always first to the basement.

For the past two days I was working with a big chain saw, a bunch of cables and a heavy duty com-a-long. cutting up a two foot diameter red oak that had toppled from the cliff into our upstream swimming hole. the root ball was still up on the cliff with the rest of the tree upside down.
It had to come out of there, since our thirty foot long wooden bridge is down stream of it, and the first fifty or hundred year flood would have caused it to wipe out the bridge.
I won’t go into all the details, but after what I could cut into six foot lengths I had to walk along the tree (in the water) to get to the root ball to put a cable around one of the large roots to winch it around toward shore to cut off the root ball.
Needless to say I don’t want to see another root ball or what it is attached to for a long time.

Last weekend’s coastal paddle through the marsh to the boneyard beach on Capers Island.



Stephen’s Creek with yatipope.

Aftermath of an exposed root ball a portage on the Enoree River.

Not a root ball, but another type of flood hazzard

Aftermath of river coming up into flood stage; piles of tree limbs, tree trunks, and whole trees.
Thankfully, the vast majority of it ended up on the river bank, where it had little affect on navigation; as opposed to ending up in a huge log jam, or strainers in the river.
This one was about 50+ feet in length, and about 15+ feet in height.

BOB

@castoff said:
Last weekend’s coastal paddle through the marsh to the boneyard beach on Capers Island.

yours reminds me of this one (years ago):


Brickhill Bluff (Cumberland I)

What is the difference between a rootball and a rootwad?

Lots of great pics. I especially like the one with the log balanced on a tree limb. Looks like that river varies in height a bit.

Speaking of exposed root balls!
Have you no decency?
And thus we unlimber
or topple with timber,
taking leaves for a new progeny.
(round about like Alex Haley)