We had the good fortune this summer to work remotely with the TRAYLS group out of Hoonah, Alaska.
Figure 1. Google Earth map showing the location of the town of Hoonah and the coring sites. Two tree ring sites were sampled by the group the HN site in the town and the EAR site on Ear Mountain.
Arianna Lapke lead a group of four participants through an ambitious set of projects over much of the summer. Our collaboration with the group centered on meeting virtually with the group to describe the utility and sampling of trees for dendroclimate information. Below are the results of their sampling on EAR Mountain, Chicagof Island and our lab work at the Wooster Tree Ring Lab.
The group shown coring a Sika spruce just outside of town.
More coring – this time in the rain.
The steep climb up the flank of Ear Mountain to find the old Mountain Hemlocks.
Comparisons of the fast growing Sitka Spruce and the slow growth of the higher elevation Mountain Hemlock.
The cores from the hemlock some over 400 years old show lots of stress , clinging to the mountain side and battered by storms. They are also showing a possible drop in ring-width over
