Visit to Maryland forest

Just before I got home from my western trip, I took a short side trip to New Germany State Park in Garrett County, Maryland. The park was built by the CCC during the 1930s, after the government acquired land that previous owners figured out was better suited to trees than farming.

You get the impression that you are much farther north, since the CCC boys planted spruces. Hemlocks and white pine were already common in the area.

I was a little surprised but pleased to see a mature hemlock forest. I learned to appreciate hemlocks when I was at Stevens Point, Wisconsin, but they are threatened, especially in the south. Thirty years ago, there was a beautiful hemlock grove at Old Rag Mountain in Virginia, but the hemlock woolly adelgid made short work of it. It is so completely gone that you would think it never existed. I looked for news of the hemlock in New Germany Park on Google. I found one article from 2012, saying how volunteers were inoculating the trees. Hope it continues to work.

My pictures show the CCC lake, the hemlock forest and something you rarely see these days, a phone booth.