@@busterhikney6936 LOL! Let's give Oly some credit though, he at least didn't say when Columbus first found it, just when it was first found. The Natives would have at some point when humans first migrated here, been the "fist" to find and see the Americas.
@@MattEvans529 Surely, trees then animals were present in the Americas for millions of years; we can only guess educationally who fist found it. Glad that this about land and not a butt.
@@MattEvans529 Fun fact: the first explorers traded, among other things, small pox - before ever deciding they "found" anything. Completely unbeknownst to said explorers. At that time there was about 350K+ native Americans with a booming national trade system and a beyond rich culture, resource-wise. The small pox-ocalypse ripped through the tribes faster than Covid rips through anti-vaxxers. The population of the entire continent was driven down to apocalyptic levels. No exaggeration. The landscape changed again, becoming even more resource-heavy. One hundred fifty years later, at the fragile new dawn of the recovering tribes' post-apocalypse, Europeans came back to decimate the people (and their resources). I would give anything except my dog to see what this country was like in the interim.
"My side of the mountain". The first book I ever read front to back. First book I read more than once. I read that book over and over. Once I read that book, all I could think about was running away from home and living in the woods. This lasted up through my teens and well through my twenties. I am 42 and still want to run away to the forest. As soon as I read the title of this video my side of the mountain immediately came to mind and I clicked on it. Awsome.
Me too. I lived down in the woods when I was a kid with a bear and some deer. On the coast of Oregon the black bear don't bother humans. They get plenty to eat and they don't have to hibernate. A real mild climate.
The largest Sassafras Tree is in Owensboro Kentucky. They were going to cut it down many years back and a woman chained herself to it to save it. haha It's over 300 years old
@@almadeliamorris8745 come on down….in western Kentucky along a portion of the Cumberland River there is a ridge between Eddyville and Kuttawa where there is a very small number of gigantic virgin oak trees. Takes 4 men holding hands to circle a handful of them. No equipment can get in there and the area it is located has them protected till the Lord says otherwise.
Wow! I thought the same thing when I saw this videos title! I live alone n the susquehanna river. As a teenager, I spent all my time after school in the woods.
I can't believe that you also read my favorite book from my childhood. That book had such an incredible impact on me that I moved from California to Oregon to be around trees. Thank you for reminding me of my treasured book!
Its funny, back then they "camped out," worked up a sweat by planting, hunting and fishing to survive, and now we sit in our air conditioned offices for 8 hours a day. The things *they* did to survive, we now do for vacation/recreation: gardening, going camping, hunting and fishing, etc. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 They had no idea how much "fun" they were having back then..
Having been homeless in Minnesota for several years, I take no pleasure from camping out, sleeping under the stars, feeding the summer mosquitoes, gnats, and biting flies, or suffocating in the humidity to escape them. I preferred winter to summer for that reason. Friends want to go camping for fun. No thanks. Although grateful for what I learned as a kid going camping, I will take a warm bed, a roof over my head, a toilet, and hot water over the cold hard, insect filled ground any day. Camping is not fun nor relaxing. Its a pain in the ass hardship. However temporary. You spend most of your free time setting up your camp just to be minimally comfortable for a night or two, then spend the rest of it tearing down the camp and packing up. Cooking is a nightmare of no sanitation, and using the great out doors to go to the bathroom as mosquitoes feast on your tender cheeks and other private parts makes for misery. Oh yeah. Chiggers and ticks. These days, ticks and mosquitoes carry viruses that cant be cured. Speaking of viruses, homeless is starting to look attractive, despite all the hardships, if im going to be forced by a society of morons to get vaccinated with a chemical compound that not only does not work to prevent the virus from affecting me, but could maim me for what's left of my life or kill me. The risk might be worth it if there was no other way. But since there is s far better way, ivermectin, and the government is censoring it, I am forced to question the motives of a government that would suppress what is 100% effective at curing and preventing the virus vs a vaccination that doesn't work and has deadly side effects. Real genius in action there. One could fairly conclude the government has taken a proactive role in trying to kill its citizens on purpose. Targeting those who are on social security and welfare. The old and the sick. Happy trails, happy campers.
I have been hunting down in VW for years. When I was younger and not so beat up, I would sometimes just explore instead of hunt. I found a flat on a really steep part of a mountain. It looked like fire could not get to it or loggers. There was an oak tree there that I believe it would take three men locking hands to reach around it(Maybe). The upper story on it was unbelievable. I used to call it the "Keebler tree".
That is an interesting story. Why don't you see if you can locate it on Google Map? Perhaps it's visible on the satellite view. Maybe it can be protected by the owner.
This reminds me of gnomes! When I was little, my favorite cartoon was David the Gnome, a cartoon about a gnome who lived in a hollow tree with his wife and rode through the forest on a fox named Swift to help other gnomes and animals in danger. All of the gnomes lived in a village of hollow tree trunks! 🥰
I think I remember this! Was there an episode about rescuing a family of bunnies from flooding caised by a storm? 😲 I had forgotten all about it until I read your comment and now I want to revisit those cartoons with my children. I think they would LOVE them.
Just stumbled across this vid. I am a Buckhannon native and was hoping as I was watching this video that you included the Pringle Tree in your research. Pleasant surprise as it was the first to be mentioned. I too loved "My Side of The Mountain" which was introduced to me in 6th grade. Love it so much that I got a copy several years ago and read it to my kids. Very cool stuff, my friend.
I'm from Hampton. Loved playing in those hills and Hampton cemetary has so much history. My family lived there for hundreds of years. We have alot of Cherokee in us and Scottish and Irish way back. My Dad was at least 7/8th Cherokee.
Yes, I have always been obsessed or distracted by the idea of living in the base of a tree and specifically because of the movie 'My Side of the Mountain'. I thought I was the only one. Really amazing to meet a kindred spirit with such a specific memory. I am looking forward to seeing more of your adventures and will continue my own quest. Thank you so much for the video.
I still have my copy. I think for some of us the idea of running away and living off the land was a dream that sustained us when we thought our options were limited. As a children librarian, years later, I saw few adventure books like I grew up reading although, Flanagan's superb The Ranger Apprentice Series, Wisler's My Brother, the Wind and Paulsen's Series - The Hatchet have great appeal. George's trilogy of books and the Hardy Boys' The Hooded Hawk mystery got me interested in falconry. The movie of My Side of the Mountain, was highly disappointing and probably because it brought to life on the screen what we wanted to do in a different way then we imagined the story being portrayed and of course, we were not in it! Unfortunately, many of our early ancestors saw the vastness of America having unlimited resources and did not understand there were thresholds to not cross. As a result, overconsumption of our natural resources was the result. We lost most of the buffalo, the elk in the east were killed off for over 150 years, wild turkeys were almost destroyed, and we lost the passenger pigeons. At the same time, Conrad Richter's The Trees discusses the forest destruction. These sycamores are not the only large trees. I have a quartersawn black walnut board which is 22 inches in width. And growing up in the 1960s, in the woods we played in, was a black walnut tree that was even bigger but was cut because portions of a major road were being connected together. How it survived for so many years in well settled lower Montgomery County, Maryland I do not know. We don't allow trees to grow big anymore. I would love to see us preserve trees for hundred years again that they might grow huge once more.
I don´t know about those sycamores, but in Africa there are also hollow trees, baobab trees usually and they are potential death traps for anyone just entering them because of the fungus growing in them due to the batdroppings and also because of poisonous snakes and other critters. The biggest problem though is the danger of infection from bat and other animaldroppings. One has to really clean everything up and smoke everything out for a long time.
Well said, mold and animal droppings dust would be a deadly mix. In 1985 while in the servIce our US Ship anchored outside of Mahajanga Madagascar. Located somewhere along the waterfront in the city, there’s an impressive Baobab tree that’s reported to be over 700yrs old! It’s massive.
My 4th great-granduncle, James Gillespie Kincaid, and his family lived in a hollow sycamore tree in Greenbriar, County, VA from 1807 to 1812. They then moved on to Fayette County, in what is now West Virginia.
One of the oldest trees in the Eastern USA is in the town of Harrodsburg, KY. It is an Osage Orange tree AKA Hedge Apple tree. It was growing long before Daniel Boone stepped foot in Central, KY.
My Mother's family are the Lynch"s of Lynchburg, VA. Her branch moved over into KY in the early 1800's. G-Grandfather Lynch, the town founders had like 15 children. Married 3 times,wife 1 and 2 died in childbirth and he just continued to take younger wives and "carry-on" I suppose. lol. Mercy. Folks were different back then and he was obviously well to do (from a working for his wealth situation). At a.y rate the lived in and arounf Louisville, and I recall them speaking often of Bargetown. There was family there too. There was the one Lynch that went on to open Meryll Lynch. Mother was born in Toledo by chance, but was raised in Chicago and Kentucky. I should take a road trip up/over there. It's said to be beautiful country and its been a long time since I was in KY. Need to go to Lynchburg too. Then on to N Carolinia for some Surf Fishing. Your comment brought all this to mind.
Next to Ft Washington in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1790s a wash woman who did work for the soldiers lived nearby in a tree and one of the branches was purported to be used as a chimney. In an old book on the fort there is a drawing of her and the tree.
I was Fascinated with the " My side of the mountain" story when I was a Kid. The book was good. The Movie was Silly. I've lived the outdoor Lifestyle since then. And Now I Have a House in the Rockies on My Side of the Mountain. Great video! Best Wishes! M.H.
todays trees are mere bushes compared to the ones that existed in pre-settlement times. One day they will return if enough land is protected from logging and development.
I used to hunt the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The accounts of logging swamp oak for ship building say that trees less than seven foot thick were not even bothered with.
My grandpa told of trees where three men couldn’t touch fingers reaching around. That would be 12 feet. That would be more than 6 feet across. He said they cut them all down. And burned them up just to get rid of them. He wept. He said dirt washed rocks down into the gardens in the valley. Such waste.
Here in N. TN....we have a old growth back in a haller off a small gorge that follows one the major running water ways that run backwards..along this gorge many old native American rock hangs where they said for over nights ..many many wonderful points have been found..but there is a deep limestone crack that runs to the flood plain of this ridgeline that looks like the deepest outback u can find in Australia..but smack dab in the middle of this bare bones dirt plain with a amazing cave entrance above it about 20 yards back..but the sycamore that resides there is as big a bluebird bus..and hollow at the base with..wait for it... rock placed stepping stones down into a chamber below the cave..it doesn't connect..but the is a deadfall inside from past fallings..so it did connect at one time..with a ancient hickory stump in the void..many nappings litter the ground inside..and a few cannon balls embedded in the cliffs beside the old tree from a confederate artillery range ...I don't wanna say the camp name .. although most people don't don't know the name of this camp but if they was to hear it and look it up they can figure out the location and then you'll be trespassing on some land that is not safe to trespass on let me tell ya.. sometimes Rock hunting is a dangerous game especially when they got an old Farmers growing s*** out there in the back that they don't want you to knowing about and it's a good walk to get back here now not to mention the den of coyotes back there which we kind of think might be red wolves.. needless to say there's a giant hickory on the top of the hill where the cave and the sycamore is located that has a pointing arm that was trained to point the way a native American Indian pointing tree... Probably one of the last ones in the country and if I give up its location I put it in jeopardy and I damn sure I'm not going to put it in jeopardy.... Cuz that game show is hard.. not to mention that's my point hunting grounds I catch anybody else out there picking up my airheads... oh buddy!
There is no such thing as an Indian pointing tree.The tree you have is very special nonetheless.It was definitely trained ,most likely to be a knee in a sailing ship or anything else the colonials needed a curved piece of wood for.It was common in Europe and early America to train entire woods for future generations to use the trees for the preshaped parts they needed.
We had an arborist come by when a high wind storm blew a huge branch out of one of our oak trees. She said that many old trees shed their inner trunk wood to reduce weight. The inside is the dead part of the of the tree. The outer layer is the only living growing part.
There was a huge sycamore on the banks of the Mississippi that was so big, 3 or 4 people could sleep in it with a small campfire in the middle. About 20 years after I last stayed there, wind blew it down, roots and all.
Every little boy and girl knows the joy of climbing trees and seeing this reminded me of this fact and I loved climbing up inside the the hollow chimney of an old Oak Tree which is home to hundreds of different creatures.
Pringle is in my linage to. I'm from Hampton W. Va. My parents and the rest of my family are buried in Hampton cemetery. I sure miss those days in the 1950's.
I read My Side of the Mountain back in fifth grade, and was amazed how he survived a whole winter in a tree! I guess this shows how that is possible. Thank you!
Well animals live in tree hollows all the time we are just large mammals people forget that it's a basic shelter we don't have fur coats though so harder to keep warm for us.
Husband is from Buckhannon and had told me about that tree. Even standing in front of its offspring, it is difficult to understand a couple of soldiers living inside of it for a couple of years. The last tree in Ohio is fantastic, though. With the entry area and a crawl through area to a more sheltered section, it is a brilliant hideout and shelter. Was it hollowed out enough to be a chimney to have a fire? Though it lacked the camouflage and filter of leaves in the tree, walling yourself into the isolated halt and having a wind draft for a fire makes it ideal. You could not afford a large fire but would you need one (big fire)? I don't think my great grandchildren would share the benefit of such a tree if i ran out and planted a sycamore, right this second. Too bad! Great video!
My urban-suburban 70 yr old home in Ohio has 2 Sycamores in the front yard planted when the house was new. The entire street is lined with Sycamores.The bark peelings are prolific this year. I do the same thing with them as the leaves in fall. I rake them into piles and shred them with a mulching mower with a bag and spread the result in the shrub beds around my house. I've never had to buy a bag of mulch at the big box. I see them out my living room window now and feel blessed to have them. Oh and so does the squirrel sleeping in the trunk knot hole poking his head out for fresh air.
A cylinder, even hollow is quite strong. Oaks in Britain have reached a very ripe age and are hollow. Also, I know a Japanese folktale in which there was a lying contest. The first speaker explains that in his province they had an ox that could drink Lake Biwa dry in one gulp. The second speaker said that in his province they have have a hollow tree that was so large it could fit 100 tatami, or whatever the word is. The last man spoke and told of two cedars that grew to the clouds. The first two were unimpressed and belittled his lie. He said that it was not important exactly how tall they were. It was how they were to be used. We will kill the ox and use his hide to make a drum using the great hollow stump. The cedars will make for nice drumsticks. He was given the seat of honor. Please forgive any errors because English is my native language.
✨love this trek back in to history. .I’ve got a real sympathy for the early reaches of this country in how settlers had to (literally) carve a homestead before building a cabin and farm . . ..I must have lived another life then because I get all misty eyed listening to the music of that era and visualizing life as it was then ..thank you for this glimpse of raw nature . .🌳
I would have loved to see this country's forests before man logged them. I got some big sycamore on my land in Kentucky. Recently had a very large hollow one go down in a bad storm. Gonna miss that old tree.
I love the mindset to preserve these old trees. The area I live in very few seem to care for the preservation of trees . I’ve watched over the decades as millions of mature hardwood pine mix forests have been decimated by billionaire timber companies. Wiping out hundreds a species only to be replaced with two GMO type pines . I’ve watched the animal life and many bird species disappear in these areas . Seen Millions of oaks , hickories , magnolias , beeches , dog woods , persimmons , ashes , elms and others pushed up and burned in rows . No tree hugger but they could have left 20 percent of the old growth trees. Cut right up to roads and streams , leaving a biological desert . Know of a multimillionaire contracter in town that wanted to build a subdivision that had a - who knows 400 year old Spanish oak on it - it was gorgeous snd stately . No one cared if he built the subdivision , the community just didn’t want him to cut down the Oak. He was told by a judge to cease and desist from cutting it down or pay a big fine . He sent some of his men in the middle of the night to cut the tree down and said he’d just pay the fine . This is the attitude you get when you’re used to getting your way because you’re rich in a relatively poor area and money is all that matters . Just made me sick . Killed something that could never be replaced to build one house and he was already a very , very wealthy man .
I recognize this voice, he has another RUclips Channel and is a really articulate Storyteller. I like this format too, *something bout Exploring and Storytelling that goes together so well.*
I measured a sycamore tree about 7 years ago, on the banks of the Guyandotte River close to Salt Rock, West Virginia. It wasn't hollow, still one solid trunk and measured 13' 3" in diameter at 5' up. True story.
Yes I can take you to a really large sycamore tree it's located on Route 79 about 12 miles south of Hannibal Missouri overlooking the Mississippi River. I found it years ago when I was coyote hunting and Bobcat hunting in that area
I really enjoyed this. My mother's ppl came from S.C. and my daddy's ppl are from Alabama. I am from Georgia. We have DEEP Southern roots just like this tree.
I worked on a ranch near kerrville Texas. Cimarron ranch. Its owned buy the guy that owns golds gym. Never met him. But they got an oak tree there, huge, it was used buy Indians hundred years ago. Found arrows there. Flint. Them old oaks got history. Of you ever go to Oklahoma, Texas, check out the oaks there.
I read 'My Side of the Mountain' when I was a little kid. That was more than a book for me, it was a whole adventure in my head, like I day dreamed all the time about escaping to live in the woods. Now that I think about it, I was only ten years old and already life was a rat race. There was a large area of woods near where we lived in the suburbs, the woodsy area was 2 miles by 5 miles, pure undeveloped. We used to get lost in those woods all day every day in the summer. Build forts, paint our faces with 'Indian Paint Pots' which were just these round rocks with various colors of iron ore clay in them, yellow to red and black. So, 'My Side of the Mountain' was made into a movie? All the kids fitting in that tree was cool. It was shocking when the camera switched and this guy became such a baby face.
I didn't know it'd made into a movie until reading the comments on the video. I almost don't want to watch it because it might be too different from what I imagined in my mind when I read it 20 years ago. 😅 It would be cool to compare notes and see how everyone pictured things. It's like creating memories of places you've never been and things you've never done. It's obviously been years since I read it but I still remember how I pictured everything and it was just like being there as if I'd dreamt it. I'm one of few female wilderness survival teacher probably because of that book. It shaped my whole life.❤
Wow, your real life adventures soundblike pure bliss!! I never heard of that book til today, but I lived that same dream, in my backyard and any scrap or greenbelt in parks, When I “grew up”. (yeah, right). My husband and I bought undeveloped land, second growth forest from a forest fire.and built a house, our kids played in the woods, I am still here with my trees, my friends , they are a buffer zone from the chaos out there. and I protect them by paying the ransom of property tax every year., to keep them free and wild, as long as I can stay alive. 🌲🌲🌲🌲 from WA ..we need rain! The trees are not amused with climate change. Maybe if I wash and wax my car.? 🌲
I live in washington and sometimes while out mushroom picking or fishing you can find tree trunks that are massive.there are pictures from when the town was just a logging camp and they would have a cart and 4 horses to pull that cart as well as 20 or 25 guys all sitting on the massive tree trunk it is truly awe inspiring and honestly makes me a little resentful that something that majestic was cut down without any regard for the facts that they are irreplaceable and were hundreds of years old.fact is we still don't have any trees that have grown to that size in all the time since then and most likely we wont see anything like it for several hundred more years if ever.some of those trees were alive for decades before the discovery of America by whomever it was. the native Americans or the Vikings or Columbus and from some studies perhaps people from the Asian lands china Japan ECT.ect.
I've never seen a giant sycamore tree but I had the privilege of growing up in CA (before it went to crap. Still live here but trying to get out) and my favorite place is Yosemite, is home to giant Sequoias. My church has a private camp in Yosemite called Camp Wawona (one of the last privately owned properties in the National Park) and I was taking a group of teenagers backpacking summer of 2016 and we had to pass through Mariposa Grove where a lot of the giant Sequoias are. The Grove was closed to visitors for some maintenance that year but we were passing through the back side of it and because we were affiliated with the camp, we had right of way to pass through legally. Unfortunately, that was a very dry summer and we ran out of water the first day with no fresh running water sources to pump from. We made camp right there in Mariposa Grove and I have to say it's one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do. The kids had come back from "talking to a man about a horse" (going to the bathroom) and said they'd actually found a bathroom. I didn't realize we were that close to the main path for the grove. The next day I headed out to do my business when I heard tractors and workers coming my direction and, even though I was ok to be there, I didn't want to have to explain anything and get caught up with the Rangers so I ran to the nearest Sequoia and ducked inside. It was one of the smaller dudes in the forest but I was able to stand up straight and get deeper inside so as to not be detected. Seemed like they talked right outside forever but finally walked away and I booked it back to camp and told the kids and staff to get their gear on because I wasn't sticking around to be found and questioned. It sure was exciting though! I imagine if the workers had come just a bit closer they might have spotted me and probably would have flipped out which makes me giggle to think about. 🤣 as bad as the no water situation was, I'll never forget the night spent with the giant Sequoias and I hope the kids don't forget either. That's a once in a lifetime type of thing that pretty much no one is permitted to do ever. I'm sure park Rangers would have asked us to move or even cited us if they'd found us there as we were allowed to travel through but not to stay the night. Thank God we don't use tents on those trips or everyone wouldn't have already been packed up ready to bug out. Anyway, I get a little joy when I get to share that story. There's more to it but I don't want to get retroactively fined for something that was stupid and I shouldn't have done, especially during the summer in that area which ended up turning out just fine.😅 if it hadn't, I'd probably would be in jail right now and you'd be reading a very different story written by someone else with a splashy headline. 🤣 Btw, My Side of The Mountain is probably why I am the way I am when it comes the wilderness. I'm just a different type of gal.🤣
@@scar3xcr0 we scouted it first and water was flowing well a few days before. You have to remember, this is California. Water conditions change without warning. It all turned out fine and there was back road access from camp to get water to us if we needed it and that's what we did. If it hadn't been near camp, I and the staff wouldn't have taken them at all because it was a particularly dry summer.
Hi great video, I'm from Australia and the little town I live in s called Springton, in the late 1800's German settlers settled into this little town (which was called Black Springs back then), a family named by the surname of Herbig were one one of the very first to settle in this wee little town. There was Mum, Dad and 14 children that all lived in a massive tree trunk base while they built their home. Both the tree and the Herbig homestead are still standing and even some of the Herbig's descendants still live in the town. I am now going to binge watch your channel. Thank you this was very interesting, I hope the rest are as good :)
I was born in 1962 in STL Co Mo. We had a huge sycamore tree in our yard I believe it’s still there, I’m going to have to get a closer look. Childhood memories last like a sycamore in our mind.
If your out in the yard clustered up around a fire, there’s little wonder you can’t see stars and it’s so dark otherwise Cottonwoods are a fast growing, short lived tree hat can live 200 yrs but most are dead in 70. Sycamore’s are slower growing but the tree tends to hollow out after 50 years. They have been known to live as long as 250 years.
I loved My Side of the Mountain. It is one of a very few books I've reread. Even as recently as last week I thought being able to live in one was an exaggeration. I had no idea they could be that big. Thanks!
The Sycamores were planted a lot as ornamental trees in Yakima, WA, a town in the dry desert land in WA. They had little hard balls like pompoms that were made of seeds packed together..Another tree that was planted everywhere for shade were Horse Chestnuts. They had these hard green seed pods with sharp thorns all over, inside were the chestnuts, horse chestnuts, that were inedible snd supposed to be poison, not to eat..I akways wondered if horses could eat them?
I was about 12 when the movie "my side of the Mountain," was released. After seeing that movie I began a lifetime of love for the woods, from the pines in Oregon to the Sycamores in Kentucky...
RUclips recommended this video to me and I'm glad it did. By the way also, I read the book as a youngster about "My Side of the Mountain" and I found it very interesting. We have a gigantic sycamore tree here in Illinois Indiana that has a base that the trunk that is more than 12 ft across. The old tree is decades-old and it was blown over in a storm back in the fifties. Since it was the largest and oldest tree of its kind in the county, it was hauled into town and displayed inside of a building in one of our local parks put on display.
If you can just leave a tree where it fell..it is not dead, , it will regenerate new life and send out shoots that grow into saplings and seedlings will sprout around it… and treeesc nearby will send rootlets to the fallen tree’s roots to nourish it ..I have seen full grioen trees growing out of a long ago fallen “ nurse log” in my own land of second growth from a 159 yr old fire and salvage logged cedar forest. The trees are maple, cottonwood, alder snd fir, only stumps of cedar remained, and they seeded new cedars that are 30 ft high and bushy.. So life can recover snd go on if undisturbed snd it only takes a few generations..or decades of human lives. Trees are so wonderfully intelligent snd mysterious. Every tree is a whole universe and habitat for smaller creatures, and each tree has a unique biosphere of microorganisms under neath in the soil. If only humankind woukd open our eyes and hearts to see and love trees and be loved by them invreturn🌲🌲🌲🌲❤️😎
ok. not only does my familiarity w/ my side of the mountain run way back into the 70s , but I grew up in the woods & love trees , crave American history , have been brednspread in the S.East & can't believe some of the great details about these topics in this video . I cannot believe I hadn't heard of this more than in a casual passing . Nicely done!
Excellent.. much needed little known history. In 'Tales of the Pioneers' (I listened to it; Books on tape 1990), one of the stories was of a native American Indian that has to shelter in a tree hollow during a snow storm in what is now Ohio. Perhaps the same tree that was shown.. but the description was of a smaller hollow.. as I remember.
Just east of buffalo, mo. at Big John river access there stands a sycamore tree that has a tunnel through it, and a trail goes through it. I've not measured it, but it's huge.
Also my favorite book both as a child and to this day. The story of which is solely responsible for my initial desire to discover what lay beyond the fence in my back yard. It provided the bravery and willingness I needed to push on past fears and boundaries in order to seek out adventure and a life in the Forest, Which led me to my most cherished relationship. The one that defines my connectivity to our natural World and has gives me purpose and refuge in my worst of days. And ever since, in turn continues to fuel my wanderlust and constant yearning to be in the woods and On the Side of My Mountain in Shady Valley.
Down in Puyallup washington there is an old tree that's been cut down at about 8 foot that has a roof and a normal size door. I first seen it when I was a kid. And fifty years later it's still there.
We played inside of one in our front yard growing up. My dad attached an iron ladder inside, so my sister and I could climb up to the crotch. We thought we were Royalty sitting up there. We live in Pennsylvania woods.
Sycamores usually grow along or near rivers, creeks, streams which is why they're able to grow so tall and broad. Growing up near the Shenandoah Valley, where I live now, yes there are many Sycamores large enough to live in and around. The natives used Sycamores for making containers, mortis and pestals other utilitarian things. They are beautiful, looking somewhat like a white birch with a different bark.
If I can ever buy land someday, one thing that I'd like to do is create some kind of environmental land trust, where it would be legally agreed upon that no one would cut the trees in some part of the land, or the whole thing, forever, that is, until our legal system collapses and we no longer recognize legal paperwork from the 2020s or whenever it will be that I own land. There are some land trusts that already exist, for environmental protection, but I would specifically mention not cutting the trees as part of the trust.
I'm lucky to own some land in a temperate, green part of Australia. I'm going to see if Sycamores will grow here. If they do, I'll plant one or two for my great grand-children, or maybe their kids, to play in. I already have Oak, Spruce, Plane and Pine trees which look good amongst the native species. We can attach legal caveats to land to take care of the property's environment. Good luck with your project. (My Side of The Mountain was a favorite book of mine as a child as well.)
There used to be a huge River Sycamore on the banks of the Green River in South Central Ky someone put an old 12ft John Boat on it as a door. Never measured it but several men could sit inside.
The one old picture in the begining of the video with all the people standing in front of the tree i believe is a american chestnut. They were the largest tree on the east coast. They called them redwoods of the east.
Outside of Waverly Ohio along Crooked Creek there was a large sycamore hollowed out that leaned out over the creek. We nailed 2x4 steps up inside about 10 feet to a hole that used to be a limb and could look down at the water. Much fun as a wayward kid. We also used to climb around on the Logan Elm, it's just a memory now.
There is a story of one our ancestors who floated down the Ohio River on a raft and when he landed he lived in the hollowed portion of a huge tree. From reading this it most likely was a giant Sycamore tree. Thanks for this video as it sheds a little little on this ancestor. Name Andrew Anderson.
This just turned up in my feed and I really really loved it. My side of the mountain is my all time favorite book. I can't even describe how much it impacted me, my childhood and now adult life. I'm always planning my run to that tree.
Awesome You need to go tour Beall Woods State Park in Southeastern Illinois It's the largest stand of virgin timber on the east side of the Mississippi
What an amazing video! Living in a Hollow tree! My great grandmother told her children about her childhood during the Civil War. Her family had a farm or plantation in Mississippi.They were driven from their home and were refugees camping in the woods. She said the family lived for a time in a HOLLOW TREE. They eventually settled in Orange, Texas, where, in the 1880’s ’ she married my great grandfather and moved to Kansas. I met her in 1960 when she was in her late 90’s and I was a girl of16. I asked her about the hollow tree, but she could not tell me any stories by then. She thought I was a boy because I was wearing pants, but remembered my Dad, so she figured I was her grandson and I could not convince her that I was his daughter. . I have collected our family history, but the hollow tree story is oral history and I do not know where it was located. Your video is a bit of validation that oral history does preserve events that can’t be documented, but should not be discounted and may eventually be proven by future family researchers. For example, my father in law always said his ancestors were knights and lived in a castle in England. He had been told this by his elders. In 2001 I connected with a distant cousin of my husband, who sent me documented history of his family. The “ castle” is a Tudor era mansion on the list of historic buildings in England, and the family were wealthy merchants who had been granted a Coat of Arms, which was still displayed over the fireplace in the house. The ancestor emigrated to Virginia colony in the mid 1600’s’ before the English civil war. So the oral history was accurate in general, only differing in detail, and had been preserved for over 300 yrs in the family. Thank you for this video I have subcribed.
where I live, British Columbia, Vancouver Island.. we have Douglas Fir trees that age 800 years old that are quite similar to the Sycamore tree in size and relation. as a coniferous giant
I only knew I had a couple of sycamore trees on my property because I was so impressed by the gigantic leaves that I had to look up and see what kind of trees they were. I'd like to think they will live long enough to grow to enormous size !!!
I belive 'My Side of the Mountain' stirred the imagination of more children than Mark Twain's books like 'Tom Sawyer'. And to think some of those old trees are still around and growing...Amazing! Those are National Treasures.
This is cool. I am 78 and ALWAYS, ESPECIALLY IN MY YOUNGER YRS.I always wanted to "tent out" wherever. Of course, it never came to fruition. I had children and husband. LOL.Think of ALL the money one can save by living in a tent(OR TREE). LOL. It is STILL a great idea.LOL. Thanks for the vid.
Near INDIAN HILL, an area near Cincinnati a family lived in a sycamore in what is now Sycamore Township.Near that in Loveland on I275 I spotted the remains of an enormous sycamore back 40 years ago,always wanted to check it out
I climbed a sycamore when i was a kid in southeast TN but it wasnt quite that big around i mean it was a big tree tall and about two people to hug it but not room for people to sit inside of
Simply amazing. This week MTA cut down without notice live healthy trees to protect the trains. It was awful google harmon station tree massacre. People need to respect trees. What happened to the tree George Washington found. Thank you for this incredible video.
In the book portrait of a pioneer, a biography of Alex Stewart he talked about people living in hollow trees in his life time. That would have been the early 1900s. Its an amazing book.
We have a historically large cedar tree hidden in the depths of the great Dismal Swamp here on the border of NC and VA, at a state park called Merchants Mill Pond. They do a guided hike out there once a year I'm told. Have yet to visit. Also, in NY we have some pretty big oak trees that have indications that they were ritual sites of some sort, with rings of stones circling the trunk at about 50 feet from the base. Lots of Forrest folk lore in Central New York. But you'll have to find a Keeper to take you there. That's if they don't intentionally try to get you lost, first. I think my friend wanted me to feel that I had earned the privilege by trucking many miles to see it. It was well worth it, and it revealed to me a hidden culture that still exists today. If you hear a twig break when your alone in the woods... it might be the Keeper of that forest.
I believe in those Keepers! As long as you show respect and don’t talk or even think about cutting or chopping anything, its safe. They can make you get lost or drop a branch , make the trail disappear. We went on a “day hike” ( yeah, right) to walk up to the top of Mt Plichuck in Western WA Cascade range foothills. There was an old abandoned Fire lookout post on top with a panorama view. Our guide, a friend who knew the trail, got way too far ahead of us..left us behind, We lost the trail when it was blocked by a huge tree-fall, and followed a trail sign made of sticks and small stones to a detour. We were diverted into clearing where the trail disappeared and suddenly the straps on my husbands backpack broke..and it fell off. We saw a large stone slab,like an altar that had a bunch of wilted wildflowers on it..like an offering……we sat down and rested and left some tobacco there as an offering, too. We hunted for a trail back or out and followed a track that led us into a swampy bog up against a cliff….we were good and lost!! We heard voices and high above were hikers coming down the mountain, and they guided us to the true trail again..We did finish the hike, but had to hike down in total dark..no moon and no flashlight..which must have been lost when the backpack fell off. All the while remembering that only a month before 2 hikers had vanished on that mountain and had not been found..or ever were as far as I know. We have always thought that we had an encounter with the Guardian Spirit of the mountain in the clearing that day and were allowed to leave safely. The Indians out here teach that a tobacco offering is a good thing to do to thank the spirits in nature.Other things to offer are food, flowers , sage , or even a hair offering., pluck a hair or comb out a few..when camping and let the breeze take it. Our hike took place before cell phones, and even if we did have one, there prob would have been no signal up there…It is never a good idea to split up a group like what happened to us. Our guide should not have abandoned us because we did not know the trail. I sure would like to see that hidden grove in NY. I am glad that it is protected from profane vandals. Westerners who have never been that far East, like me, tend to visualise NY as a solid mass of concrete and skyscrapers.What a good feeling it brings to know that there are still wild spaces beyond civilisation. 🌲
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I can only imagine what natural America looked like when it was fist found, many more animals and huge trees. It must have been amazing.
there is a good book about that exact topic called "Paradise Found," if you are interested.
Yes. The Native Americans must have thought so before the land later became fist found.
@@busterhikney6936 LOL! Let's give Oly some credit though, he at least didn't say when Columbus first found it, just when it was first found. The Natives would have at some point when humans first migrated here, been the "fist" to find and see the Americas.
@@MattEvans529 Surely, trees then animals were present in the Americas for millions of years; we can only guess educationally who fist found it. Glad that this about land and not a butt.
@@MattEvans529 Fun fact: the first explorers traded, among other things, small pox - before ever deciding they "found" anything. Completely unbeknownst to said explorers. At that time there was about 350K+ native Americans with a booming national trade system and a beyond rich culture, resource-wise. The small pox-ocalypse ripped through the tribes faster than Covid rips through anti-vaxxers. The population of the entire continent was driven down to apocalyptic levels. No exaggeration. The landscape changed again, becoming even more resource-heavy. One hundred fifty years later, at the fragile new dawn of the recovering tribes' post-apocalypse, Europeans came back to decimate the people (and their resources). I would give anything except my dog to see what this country was like in the interim.
"My side of the mountain". The first book I ever read front to back. First book I read more than once. I read that book over and over. Once I read that book, all I could think about was running away from home and living in the woods. This lasted up through my teens and well through my twenties. I am 42 and still want to run away to the forest.
As soon as I read the title of this video my side of the mountain immediately came to mind and I clicked on it.
Awsome.
Thanks
Just added that book to my summer bucket list
Me too. I lived down in the woods when I was a kid with a bear and some deer. On the coast of Oregon the black bear don't bother humans. They get plenty to eat and they don't have to hibernate. A real mild climate.
@@jamespenn5788 that sounds amazing.
@@jamespenn5788 that sounds amazing.
@@reginasoules2837" A must read ",..... as they say.
Seems reasonable to me. After all, the Keebler Elves have a whole cookie factory in one.
😆😂🤣
You ain't right. That's funny.
😅😂🤣
Well they are elves afterall
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The largest Sassafras Tree is in Owensboro Kentucky. They were going to cut it down many years back and a woman chained herself to it to save it. haha It's over 300 years old
Man, that’s only 3 hours from me. I better go visit.
@@gorehammer1 On Fredricka Street I believe
Who was that Woman? I need a wife like her……….
Going to go check it out next time I go to Kentucky. Its beautiful, and everyone is so nice to me. I'm from AZ. Love you Kentucky!!
@@almadeliamorris8745 come on down….in western Kentucky along a portion of the Cumberland River there is a ridge between Eddyville and Kuttawa where there is a very small number of gigantic virgin oak trees. Takes 4 men holding hands to circle a handful of them. No equipment can get in there and the area it is located has them protected till the Lord says otherwise.
"My side of the Mountain" My favorite Book as a Child also. I live alone today on my side of the mountain in West Virginia.
👍❤️
our teacher read it to us in the 5th grade. it was great
Wow! I thought the same thing when I saw this videos title! I live alone n the susquehanna river. As a teenager, I spent all my time after school in the woods.
I read that book dozens of times as a child
I can't believe that you also read my favorite book from my childhood. That book had such an incredible impact on me that I moved from California to Oregon to be around trees. Thank you for reminding me of my treasured book!
Its funny, back then they "camped out," worked up a sweat by planting, hunting and fishing to survive, and now we sit in our air conditioned offices for 8 hours a day. The things *they* did to survive, we now do for vacation/recreation: gardening, going camping, hunting and fishing, etc. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 They had no idea how much "fun" they were having back then..
Yep! I'm a thinkin' they spelt it diffrunt, too!
Yep ! But the viewpoint changes when it is done out of necessity versus you don't need or have to.Lol !
Progress, ain't.
@@ericswain4177 I’d rather live like that than in the modern society. Modern society is trash
Having been homeless in Minnesota for several years, I take no pleasure from camping out, sleeping under the stars, feeding the summer mosquitoes, gnats, and biting flies, or suffocating in the humidity to escape them. I preferred winter to summer for that reason.
Friends want to go camping for fun. No thanks. Although grateful for what I learned as a kid going camping, I will take a warm bed, a roof over my head, a toilet, and hot water over the cold hard, insect filled ground any day.
Camping is not fun nor relaxing. Its a pain in the ass hardship. However temporary.
You spend most of your free time setting up your camp just to be minimally comfortable for a night or two, then spend the rest of it tearing down the camp and packing up.
Cooking is a nightmare of no sanitation, and using the great out doors to go to the bathroom as mosquitoes feast on your tender cheeks and other private parts makes for misery.
Oh yeah. Chiggers and ticks. These days, ticks and mosquitoes carry viruses that cant be cured.
Speaking of viruses, homeless is starting to look attractive, despite all the hardships, if im going to be forced by a society of morons to get vaccinated with a chemical compound that not only does not work to prevent the virus from affecting me, but could maim me for what's left of my life or kill me.
The risk might be worth it if there was no other way. But since there is s far better way, ivermectin, and the government is censoring it, I am forced to question the motives of a government that would suppress what is 100% effective at curing and preventing the virus vs a vaccination that doesn't work and has deadly side effects.
Real genius in action there.
One could fairly conclude the government has taken a proactive role in trying to kill its citizens on purpose.
Targeting those who are on social security and welfare. The old and the sick.
Happy trails, happy campers.
I have been hunting down in VW for years. When I was younger and not so beat up, I would sometimes just explore instead of hunt. I found a flat on a really steep part of a mountain. It looked like fire could not get to it or loggers. There was an oak tree there that I believe it would take three men locking hands to reach around it(Maybe). The upper story on it was unbelievable. I used to call it the "Keebler tree".
WV. Lol
What county was it in?
@@DTA-me3kv Volkswagon County LOL!!! 😄🤣
That is an interesting story. Why don't you see if you can locate it on Google Map? Perhaps it's visible on the satellite view. Maybe it can be protected by the owner.
This reminds me of gnomes! When I was little, my favorite cartoon was David the Gnome, a cartoon about a gnome who lived in a hollow tree with his wife and rode through the forest on a fox named Swift to help other gnomes and animals in danger. All of the gnomes lived in a village of hollow tree trunks! 🥰
I think I remember this! Was there an episode about rescuing a family of bunnies from flooding caised by a storm? 😲 I had forgotten all about it until I read your comment and now I want to revisit those cartoons with my children. I think they would LOVE them.
They WERE gnomes lol and elves.
Why did this make me cry? It’s so beautiful to see how Abba provides for His creations.
🙄 why did this make you cry? Real question.
@@Badger1776 Poetic beauty, I guess.
On the West coast we had a redwood tree trunk in the front yard with a 'house' carved inside. It was an amazing place to be a child.
Just stumbled across this vid. I am a Buckhannon native and was hoping as I was watching this video that you included the Pringle Tree in your research. Pleasant surprise as it was the first to be mentioned. I too loved "My Side of The Mountain" which was introduced to me in 6th grade. Love it so much that I got a copy several years ago and read it to my kids. Very cool stuff, my friend.
I'm from Hampton. Loved playing in those hills and Hampton cemetary has so much history. My family lived there for hundreds of years. We have alot of Cherokee in us and Scottish and Irish way back. My Dad was at least 7/8th Cherokee.
Yes, I have always been obsessed or distracted by the idea of living in the base of a tree and specifically because of the movie 'My Side of the Mountain'. I thought I was the only one. Really amazing to meet a kindred spirit with such a specific memory. I am looking forward to seeing more of your adventures and will continue my own quest. Thank you so much for the video.
When I was a kid I had a copy of my side of the mountain. I had some problems and that book was a great escape!
I read that book too. It took place in the Adirondacks.
@@garywebb5927 Books do save lives. Glad you found yours
I still have my copy. I think for some of us the idea of running away and living off the land was a dream that sustained us when we thought our options were limited. As a children librarian, years later, I saw few adventure books like I grew up reading although, Flanagan's superb The Ranger Apprentice Series, Wisler's My Brother, the Wind and Paulsen's Series - The Hatchet have great appeal. George's trilogy of books and the Hardy Boys' The Hooded Hawk mystery got me interested in falconry. The movie of My Side of the Mountain, was highly disappointing and probably because it brought to life on the screen what we wanted to do in a different way then we imagined the story being portrayed and of course, we were not in it! Unfortunately, many of our early ancestors saw the vastness of America having unlimited resources and did not understand there were thresholds to not cross. As a result, overconsumption of our natural resources was the result. We lost most of the buffalo, the elk in the east were killed off for over 150 years, wild turkeys were almost destroyed, and we lost the passenger pigeons. At the same time, Conrad Richter's The Trees discusses the forest destruction. These sycamores are not the only large trees. I have a quartersawn black walnut board which is 22 inches in width. And growing up in the 1960s, in the woods we played in, was a black walnut tree that was even bigger but was cut because portions of a major road were being connected together. How it survived for so many years in well settled lower Montgomery County, Maryland I do not know. We don't allow trees to grow big anymore. I would love to see us preserve trees for hundred years again that they might grow huge once more.
me too
I got lost in the Redwoods and caught in a big storm. I sheltered the night in such a hollow
Sounds like an adventure! was it fun or scary?
I don´t know about those sycamores, but in Africa there are also hollow trees, baobab trees usually and they are potential death traps for anyone just entering them because of the fungus growing in them due to the batdroppings and also because of poisonous snakes and other critters. The biggest problem though is the danger of infection from bat and other animaldroppings. One has to really clean everything up and smoke everything out for a long time.
I think you can just wear an n95 mask and be ok.
Well said, mold and animal droppings dust would be a deadly mix. In 1985 while in the servIce our US Ship anchored outside of Mahajanga Madagascar. Located somewhere along the waterfront in the city, there’s an impressive Baobab tree that’s reported to be over 700yrs old! It’s massive.
😯Very interesting, thanks!👍
I believe you. Its called histoplasmosis.
When I was a young teen I spent many night's in a huge sycamore on the Ohio river night fishing 3 of us rolled out sleeping bags with plenty of room.
Seems like they would be good trees for bat roosts also. As bats use shagbark hickory trees to rest under the shingle like bark.
Your a keebler !!!
My 4th great-granduncle, James Gillespie Kincaid, and his family lived in a hollow sycamore tree in Greenbriar, County, VA from 1807 to 1812. They then moved on to Fayette County, in what is now West Virginia.
You say 'family' so can we assume they had bunk beds?
@@marktwain368 No doubt, with splinters!🤣
Imagine living in a tree with a FAMILY! I'm not sure if that's sad, or really cool?
One of the oldest trees in the Eastern USA is in the town of Harrodsburg, KY. It is an Osage Orange tree AKA Hedge Apple tree. It was growing long before Daniel Boone stepped foot in Central, KY.
BLM & Antifa will cut it down. 666
@@stewiepid4385 hey that's enough lol
Hedge apples are just plain weird
Thats true. That's where my daughter and her family live. They moved there from Arizona. I love it over there. It has alot of history.
My Mother's family are the Lynch"s of Lynchburg, VA. Her branch moved over into KY in the early 1800's. G-Grandfather Lynch, the town founders had like 15 children. Married 3 times,wife 1 and 2 died in childbirth and he just continued to take younger wives and "carry-on" I suppose. lol. Mercy. Folks were different back then and he was obviously well to do (from a working for his wealth situation).
At a.y rate the lived in and arounf Louisville, and I recall them speaking often of Bargetown. There was family there too.
There was the one Lynch that went on to open Meryll Lynch. Mother was born in Toledo by chance, but was raised in Chicago and Kentucky.
I should take a road trip up/over there. It's said to be beautiful country and its been a long time since I was in KY.
Need to go to Lynchburg too.
Then on to N Carolinia for some Surf Fishing.
Your comment brought all this to mind.
Next to Ft Washington in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1790s a wash woman who did work for the soldiers lived nearby in a tree and one of the branches was purported to be used as a chimney. In an old book on the fort there is a drawing of her and the tree.
Wow!
Have discalcula. so I mess up number and can't do math for shit. I read that as 1970 and was so messed up. Lol
@@michelewalburn4376 It was 1977- she was escaping from the Jimmy Carter Administration!
@@paulbriggs3072Lol...a lot of people wanted to escape from Jimmy Carters incompetence. I was only 12 in 1979, and I was one of them!
I was Fascinated with the " My side of the mountain" story when I was a Kid.
The book was good. The Movie was Silly.
I've lived the outdoor Lifestyle since then.
And Now I Have a House in the Rockies on My Side of the Mountain.
Great video!
Best Wishes! M.H.
The book influenced me too as a kid now I live on my side of the mountain as well! God bless you!
todays trees are mere bushes compared to the ones that existed in pre-settlement times. One day they will return if enough land is protected from logging and development.
For sure! There are still a few giants lurking around these days, so they could definitely make a comeback.
Most people wouldn't really cut down a giant tree and will naturally have respect to it. But white peple arn't most people
@@sheezy2526 Race is irrelevant. Greed is the source of the problems.
@@sheezy2526 Please don't lump all people together. There are good and evil in all walks of life And professions. 😇👿
@@sheezy2526 I think you just made a racist statement. Racist ,
Jon Townsend would probably find this fascinating.
I thought the exact same when I saw the thumbnail! 😄
I can see him making biscuits in the trees !
Yeah he could fill it with his rocks
I love his channel!
@@AmericanMythology Same here, especially the Nutmeg Tavern livestream.
Interesting. I have often wished I could travel back about 250-300 years to see the forests that covered the eastern US. Too bad they were destroyed.
Do you ever wonder how things would have been if more people from Europe tried to integrate with the native peoples that they met? I do sometimes.
I used to hunt the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The accounts of logging swamp oak for ship building say that trees less than seven foot thick were not even bothered with.
You could come up to Western NY and see all the trees you've ever missed.
We have a bigger tree down here in western Kentucky. On the Cumberland River you
My grandpa told of trees where three men couldn’t touch fingers reaching around. That would be 12 feet. That would be more than 6 feet across. He said they cut them all down. And burned them up just to get rid of them. He wept. He said dirt washed rocks down into the gardens in the valley. Such waste.
I live in Western Illinois. The largest sycamore and oak tree I've ever seen are west of me and only about one mile apart. Both are huge!
That's cool! How big are they?
Here in N. TN....we have a old growth back in a haller off a small gorge that follows one the major running water ways that run backwards..along this gorge many old native American rock hangs where they said for over nights ..many many wonderful points have been found..but there is a deep limestone crack that runs to the flood plain of this ridgeline that looks like the deepest outback u can find in Australia..but smack dab in the middle of this bare bones dirt plain with a amazing cave entrance above it about 20 yards back..but the sycamore that resides there is as big a bluebird bus..and hollow at the base with..wait for it... rock placed stepping stones down into a chamber below the cave..it doesn't connect..but the is a deadfall inside from past fallings..so it did connect at one time..with a ancient hickory stump in the void..many nappings litter the ground inside..and a few cannon balls embedded in the cliffs beside the old tree from a confederate artillery range ...I don't wanna say the camp name .. although most people don't don't know the name of this camp but if they was to hear it and look it up they can figure out the location and then you'll be trespassing on some land that is not safe to trespass on let me tell ya.. sometimes Rock hunting is a dangerous game especially when they got an old Farmers growing s*** out there in the back that they don't want you to knowing about and it's a good walk to get back here now not to mention the den of coyotes back there which we kind of think might be red wolves.. needless to say there's a giant hickory on the top of the hill where the cave and the sycamore is located that has a pointing arm that was trained to point the way a native American Indian pointing tree... Probably one of the last ones in the country and if I give up its location I put it in jeopardy and I damn sure I'm not going to put it in jeopardy.... Cuz that game show is hard.. not to mention that's my point hunting grounds I catch anybody else out there picking up my airheads... oh buddy!
There is no such thing as an Indian pointing tree.The tree you have is very special nonetheless.It was definitely trained ,most likely to be a knee in a sailing ship or anything else the colonials needed a curved piece of wood for.It was common in Europe and early America to train entire woods for future generations to use the trees for the preshaped parts they needed.
@Tasha, that is a very good story! No wonder you want to protect that special place. Thsn you.
We had an arborist come by when a high wind storm blew a huge branch out of one of our oak trees. She said that many old trees shed their inner trunk wood to reduce weight. The inside is the dead part of the of the tree. The outer layer is the only living growing part.
Never hire this lady “arborist”
There was a huge sycamore on the banks of the Mississippi that was so big, 3 or 4 people could sleep in it with a small campfire in the middle. About 20 years after I last stayed there, wind blew it down, roots and all.
Every little boy and girl knows the joy of climbing trees and seeing this reminded me of this fact and I loved climbing up inside the the hollow chimney of an old Oak Tree which is home to hundreds of different creatures.
I'm a direct descendant of Samuel Pringle. He and his brother John also had wives living with them. They lived there 4 to 7 years.
Pringle is in my linage to. I'm from Hampton W. Va. My parents and the rest of my family are buried in Hampton cemetery. I sure miss those days in the 1950's.
I read My Side of the Mountain back in fifth grade, and was amazed how he survived a whole winter in a tree! I guess this shows how that is possible. Thank you!
Well animals live in tree hollows all the time we are just large mammals people forget that it's a basic shelter we don't have fur coats though so harder to keep warm for us.
Better than my van. I’m in Texas and only have one blanket. To old to do this. 65 thank you Biden?
@@desraadams9501Yes Biden, and the other traitors who installed him in the Trump White House, against the expressed will of the American people.
Husband is from Buckhannon and had told me about that tree. Even standing in front of its offspring, it is difficult to understand a couple of soldiers living inside of it for a couple of years. The last tree in Ohio is fantastic, though. With the entry area and a crawl through area to a more sheltered section, it is a brilliant hideout and shelter. Was it hollowed out enough to be a chimney to have a fire? Though it lacked the camouflage and filter of leaves in the tree, walling yourself into the isolated halt and having a wind draft for a fire makes it ideal. You could not afford a large fire but would you need one (big fire)? I don't think my great grandchildren would share the benefit of such a tree if i ran out and planted a sycamore, right this second. Too bad!
Great video!
My urban-suburban 70 yr old home in Ohio has 2 Sycamores in the front yard planted when the house was new. The entire street is lined with Sycamores.The bark peelings are prolific this year. I do the same thing with them as the leaves in fall. I rake them into piles and shred them with a mulching mower with a bag and spread the result in the shrub beds around my house. I've never had to buy a bag of mulch at the big box. I see them out my living room window now and feel blessed to have them. Oh and so does the squirrel sleeping in the trunk knot hole poking his head out for fresh air.
A cylinder, even hollow is quite strong. Oaks in Britain have reached a very ripe age and are hollow. Also, I know a Japanese folktale in which there was a lying contest. The first speaker explains that in his province they had an ox that could drink Lake Biwa dry in one gulp. The second speaker said that in his province they have have a hollow tree that was so large it could fit 100 tatami, or whatever the word is. The last man spoke and told of two cedars that grew to the clouds. The first two were unimpressed and belittled his lie. He said that it was not important exactly how tall they were. It was how they were to be used. We will kill the ox and use his hide to make a drum using the great hollow stump. The cedars will make for nice drumsticks. He was given the seat of honor. Please forgive any errors because English is my native language.
A tatami is a woven mat used on floors.
@@sharonkaczorowski8690 yes, so that’s quite an area.
✨love this trek back in to history. .I’ve got a real sympathy for the early reaches of this country in how settlers had to (literally) carve a homestead before building a cabin and farm . .
..I must have lived another life then because I get all misty eyed listening to the music of that era and visualizing life as it was then ..thank you for this glimpse of raw nature . .🌳
Amazing the many ways the Lord provides! A safe haven in a wilderness!
I bet it was so cold though.
@@caryn9561 there was fire and pelts for those who knew how to hunt and survive
Nature is truly amazing.
@@randyclark8774 God is amazing
Absolutely 🙏
I would have loved to see this country's forests before man logged them. I got some big sycamore on my land in Kentucky. Recently had a very large hollow one go down in a bad storm. Gonna miss that old tree.
I love the mindset to preserve these old trees. The area I live in very few seem to care for the preservation of trees . I’ve watched over the decades as millions of mature hardwood pine mix forests have been decimated by billionaire timber companies. Wiping out hundreds a species only to be replaced with two GMO type pines . I’ve watched the animal life and many bird species disappear in these areas . Seen Millions of oaks , hickories , magnolias , beeches , dog woods , persimmons , ashes , elms and others pushed up and burned in rows . No tree hugger but they could have left 20 percent of the old growth trees. Cut right up to roads and streams , leaving a biological desert . Know of a multimillionaire contracter in town that wanted to build a subdivision that had a - who knows 400 year old Spanish oak on it - it was gorgeous snd stately . No one cared if he built the subdivision , the community just didn’t want him to cut down the Oak. He was told by a judge to cease and desist from cutting it down or pay a big fine . He sent some of his men in the middle of the night to cut the tree down and said he’d just pay the fine . This is the attitude you get when you’re used to getting your way because you’re rich in a relatively poor area and money is all that matters . Just made me sick . Killed something that could never be replaced to build one house and he was already a very , very wealthy man .
I feel the pain. Grew up that way in the woods that got cut down.
You did a very good job sir. You deserve a lot of praise for your work. A very interesting top well covered!
I recognize this voice, he has another RUclips Channel and is a really articulate Storyteller.
I like this format too, *something bout Exploring and Storytelling that goes together so well.*
How incredible and beautiful those trees are!
I measured a sycamore tree about 7 years ago, on the banks of the Guyandotte River close to Salt Rock, West Virginia.
It wasn't hollow, still one solid trunk and measured 13' 3" in diameter at 5' up.
True story.
Yes I can take you to a really large sycamore tree it's located on Route 79 about 12 miles south of Hannibal Missouri overlooking the Mississippi River. I found it years ago when I was coyote hunting and Bobcat hunting in that area
I’d love to see it!
Can you take a photo of it?
I really enjoyed this. My mother's ppl came from S.C. and my daddy's ppl are from Alabama. I am from Georgia. We have DEEP Southern roots just like this tree.
I worked on a ranch near kerrville Texas. Cimarron ranch. Its owned buy the guy that owns golds gym. Never met him. But they got an oak tree there, huge, it was used buy Indians hundred years ago. Found arrows there. Flint. Them old oaks got history. Of you ever go to Oklahoma, Texas, check out the oaks there.
I read 'My Side of the Mountain' when I was a little kid. That was more than a book for me, it was a whole adventure in my head, like I day dreamed all the time about escaping to live in the woods. Now that I think about it, I was only ten years old and already life was a rat race. There was a large area of woods near where we lived in the suburbs, the woodsy area was 2 miles by 5 miles, pure undeveloped. We used to get lost in those woods all day every day in the summer. Build forts, paint our faces with 'Indian Paint Pots' which were just these round rocks with various colors of iron ore clay in them, yellow to red and black. So, 'My Side of the Mountain' was made into a movie?
All the kids fitting in that tree was cool.
It was shocking when the camera switched and this guy became such a baby face.
Omg yes best book ever!
Found that book around 10, don't know how many times it got reread!!! 10-15
I didn't know it'd made into a movie until reading the comments on the video. I almost don't want to watch it because it might be too different from what I imagined in my mind when I read it 20 years ago. 😅 It would be cool to compare notes and see how everyone pictured things. It's like creating memories of places you've never been and things you've never done. It's obviously been years since I read it but I still remember how I pictured everything and it was just like being there as if I'd dreamt it. I'm one of few female wilderness survival teacher probably because of that book. It shaped my whole life.❤
@@TheRisskee same, watched part and quit, cant ruin that book! Been about 35 yrs for me.
I never imagined the tree that large!!
Wow, your real life adventures soundblike pure bliss!! I never heard of that book til today, but I lived that same dream, in my backyard and any scrap or greenbelt in parks, When I “grew up”. (yeah, right). My husband and I bought undeveloped land, second growth forest from a forest fire.and built a house, our kids played in the woods, I am still here with my trees, my friends , they are a buffer zone from the chaos out there. and I protect them by paying the ransom of property tax every year., to keep them free and wild, as long as I can stay alive. 🌲🌲🌲🌲 from WA ..we need rain! The trees are not amused with climate change. Maybe if I wash and wax my car.? 🌲
I live in washington and sometimes while out mushroom picking or fishing you can find tree trunks that are massive.there are pictures from when the town was just a logging camp and they would have a cart and 4 horses to pull that cart as well as 20 or 25 guys all sitting on the massive tree trunk it is truly awe inspiring and honestly makes me a little resentful that something that majestic was cut down without any regard for the facts that they are irreplaceable and were hundreds of years old.fact is we still don't have any trees that have grown to that size in all the time since then and most likely we wont see anything like it for several hundred more years if ever.some of those trees were alive for decades before the discovery of America by whomever it was. the native Americans or the Vikings or Columbus and from some studies perhaps people from the Asian lands china Japan ECT.ect.
I am going to have to order the book TODAY for my grandkids. I read "My Side of The Mountain," many times as a child.
I never heard of it.I got to read it too.
I found a large hollow sycamore tree several years ago, while duck hunting. It was probably 7 to 8 ft in diameter.
I've never seen a giant sycamore tree but I had the privilege of growing up in CA (before it went to crap. Still live here but trying to get out) and my favorite place is Yosemite, is home to giant Sequoias. My church has a private camp in Yosemite called Camp Wawona (one of the last privately owned properties in the National Park) and I was taking a group of teenagers backpacking summer of 2016 and we had to pass through Mariposa Grove where a lot of the giant Sequoias are. The Grove was closed to visitors for some maintenance that year but we were passing through the back side of it and because we were affiliated with the camp, we had right of way to pass through legally. Unfortunately, that was a very dry summer and we ran out of water the first day with no fresh running water sources to pump from. We made camp right there in Mariposa Grove and I have to say it's one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to do. The kids had come back from "talking to a man about a horse" (going to the bathroom) and said they'd actually found a bathroom. I didn't realize we were that close to the main path for the grove. The next day I headed out to do my business when I heard tractors and workers coming my direction and, even though I was ok to be there, I didn't want to have to explain anything and get caught up with the Rangers so I ran to the nearest Sequoia and ducked inside. It was one of the smaller dudes in the forest but I was able to stand up straight and get deeper inside so as to not be detected. Seemed like they talked right outside forever but finally walked away and I booked it back to camp and told the kids and staff to get their gear on because I wasn't sticking around to be found and questioned. It sure was exciting though! I imagine if the workers had come just a bit closer they might have spotted me and probably would have flipped out which makes me giggle to think about. 🤣 as bad as the no water situation was, I'll never forget the night spent with the giant Sequoias and I hope the kids don't forget either. That's a once in a lifetime type of thing that pretty much no one is permitted to do ever. I'm sure park Rangers would have asked us to move or even cited us if they'd found us there as we were allowed to travel through but not to stay the night. Thank God we don't use tents on those trips or everyone wouldn't have already been packed up ready to bug out. Anyway, I get a little joy when I get to share that story. There's more to it but I don't want to get retroactively fined for something that was stupid and I shouldn't have done, especially during the summer in that area which ended up turning out just fine.😅 if it hadn't, I'd probably would be in jail right now and you'd be reading a very different story written by someone else with a splashy headline. 🤣
Btw, My Side of The Mountain is probably why I am the way I am when it comes the wilderness. I'm just a different type of gal.🤣
Guiding a group of teenagers on a backaking trip without first scouting water sources is negligent and dangerous.
@@scar3xcr0 we scouted it first and water was flowing well a few days before. You have to remember, this is California. Water conditions change without warning. It all turned out fine and there was back road access from camp to get water to us if we needed it and that's what we did. If it hadn't been near camp, I and the staff wouldn't have taken them at all because it was a particularly dry summer.
'And we could live in a hollow tree,
Grow up old and bury the sea.'
-Replica, Beck
my goodness... i have always absolutely loved trees... and so glad to see this video.. thank you for seeking what im too old and tired to do
Hi great video, I'm from Australia and the little town I live in s called Springton, in the late 1800's German settlers settled into this little town (which was called Black Springs back then), a family named by the surname of Herbig were one one of the very first to settle in this wee little town. There was Mum, Dad and 14 children that all lived in a massive tree trunk base while they built their home. Both the tree and the Herbig homestead are still standing and even some of the Herbig's descendants still live in the town. I am now going to binge watch your channel. Thank you this was very interesting, I hope the rest are as good :)
Thanks for sharing!
I was born in 1962 in STL Co Mo. We had a huge sycamore tree in our yard I believe it’s still there, I’m going to have to get a closer look. Childhood memories last like a sycamore in our mind.
If your out in the yard clustered up around a fire, there’s little wonder you can’t see stars and it’s so dark otherwise
Cottonwoods are a fast growing, short lived tree hat can live 200 yrs but most are dead in 70.
Sycamore’s are slower growing but the tree tends to hollow out after 50 years. They have been known to live as long as 250 years.
I grew up in Clarke County, Virginia. Stunningly beautiful mountains and Shenandoah river.
Is that Where the Saying, " You're Outta Your Tree Came from ???? "
I loved My Side of the Mountain. It is one of a very few books I've reread. Even as recently as last week I thought being able to live in one was an exaggeration. I had no idea they could be that big. Thanks!
I've always loved Trees. The sycamore is one of my favorites.
The Sycamores were planted a lot as ornamental trees in Yakima, WA, a town in the dry desert land in WA. They had little hard balls like pompoms that were made of seeds packed together..Another tree that was planted everywhere for shade were Horse Chestnuts. They had these hard green seed pods with sharp thorns all over, inside were the chestnuts, horse chestnuts, that were inedible snd supposed to be poison, not to eat..I akways wondered if horses could eat them?
I was about 12 when the movie "my side of the Mountain," was released. After seeing that movie I began a lifetime of love for the woods, from the pines in Oregon to the Sycamores in Kentucky...
A tree with a family tree. Pretty cool.
Much respect man!!! You put legitimate hard work,research, and effort into this video. Excellent job
RUclips recommended this video to me and I'm glad it did. By the way also, I read the book as a youngster about "My Side of the Mountain" and I found it very interesting. We have a gigantic sycamore tree here in Illinois Indiana that has a base that the trunk that is more than 12 ft across. The old tree is decades-old and it was blown over in a storm back in the fifties. Since it was the largest and oldest tree of its kind in the county, it was hauled into town and displayed inside of a building in one of our local parks put on display.
If you can just leave a tree where it fell..it is not dead, , it will regenerate new life and send out shoots that grow into saplings and seedlings will sprout around it… and treeesc nearby will send rootlets to the fallen tree’s roots to nourish it ..I have seen full grioen trees growing out of a long ago fallen “ nurse log” in my own land of second growth from a 159 yr old fire and salvage logged cedar forest. The trees are maple, cottonwood, alder snd fir, only stumps of cedar remained, and they seeded new cedars that are 30 ft high and bushy.. So life can recover snd go on if undisturbed snd it only takes a few generations..or decades of human lives. Trees are so wonderfully intelligent snd mysterious. Every tree is a whole universe and habitat for smaller creatures, and each tree has a unique biosphere of microorganisms under neath in the soil. If only humankind woukd open our eyes and hearts to see and love trees and be loved by them invreturn🌲🌲🌲🌲❤️😎
Edit..the fire was in 1894. so not 159 yrs., only 127 yrs..sorry for all the typos ..senstive keyboard..big fingers 😎🌲
ok.
not only does my familiarity w/ my side of the mountain run way back into the 70s , but I grew up in the woods & love trees , crave American history , have been brednspread in the S.East & can't believe some of the great details about these topics in this video . I cannot believe I hadn't heard of this more than in a casual passing . Nicely done!
Excellent.. much needed little known history. In 'Tales of the Pioneers' (I listened to it; Books on tape 1990), one of the stories was of a native American Indian that has to shelter in a tree hollow during a snow storm in what is now Ohio. Perhaps the same tree that was shown.. but the description was of a smaller hollow.. as I remember.
I am so happy you came across my feed😁👍🏽
Just east of buffalo, mo. at Big John river access there stands a sycamore tree that has a tunnel through it, and a trail goes through it. I've not measured it, but it's huge.
Also my favorite book both as a child and to this day. The story of which is solely responsible for my initial desire to discover what lay beyond the fence in my back yard. It provided the bravery and willingness I needed to push on past fears and boundaries in order to seek out adventure and a life in the Forest, Which led me to my most cherished relationship. The one that defines my connectivity to our natural World and has gives me purpose and refuge in my worst of days. And ever since, in turn continues to fuel my wanderlust and constant yearning to be in the woods and On the Side of My Mountain in Shady Valley.
Down in Puyallup washington there is an old tree that's been cut down at about 8 foot that has a roof and a normal size door. I first seen it when I was a kid. And fifty years later it's still there.
I am so glad I found you. That was amazing!
We played inside of one in our front yard growing up. My dad attached an iron ladder inside, so my sister and I could climb up to the crotch. We thought we were Royalty sitting up there. We live in Pennsylvania woods.
Sycamores usually grow along or near rivers, creeks, streams which is why they're able to grow so tall and broad. Growing up near the Shenandoah Valley, where I live now, yes there are many Sycamores large enough to live in and around. The natives used Sycamores for making containers, mortis and pestals other utilitarian things. They are beautiful, looking somewhat like a white birch with a different bark.
If I can ever buy land someday, one thing that I'd like to do is create some kind of environmental land trust, where it would be legally agreed upon that no one would cut the trees in some part of the land, or the whole thing, forever, that is, until our legal system collapses and we no longer recognize legal paperwork from the 2020s or whenever it will be that I own land. There are some land trusts that already exist, for environmental protection, but I would specifically mention not cutting the trees as part of the trust.
Or if you do cut one you have to plant 10.
I'm lucky to own some land in a temperate, green part of Australia. I'm going to see if Sycamores will grow here. If they do, I'll plant one or two for my great grand-children, or maybe their kids, to play in. I already have Oak, Spruce, Plane and Pine trees which look good amongst the native species. We can attach legal caveats to land to take care of the property's environment. Good luck with your project. (My Side of The Mountain was a favorite book of mine as a child as well.)
That’s a truly wonderful idea - good luck!
@@GarrisonFall great!!
As a kid growing up in western Pa. in the 50's and 60's I remember many large trees in the woods that I crawled into and played in.
There used to be a huge River Sycamore on the banks of the Green River in South Central Ky someone put an old 12ft John Boat on it as a door. Never measured it but several men could sit inside.
im guessing it's no longer there?
@@x777aria I couldn't say for certain, haven't been there in 9-10yrs.
Mr.Peabody's coal train done hauled it away.
The one old picture in the begining of the video with all the people standing in front of the tree i believe is a american chestnut. They were the largest tree on the east coast. They called them redwoods of the east.
Outside of Waverly Ohio along Crooked Creek there was a large sycamore hollowed out that leaned out over the creek. We nailed 2x4 steps up inside about 10 feet to a hole that used to be a limb and could look down at the water. Much fun as a wayward kid. We also used to climb around on the Logan Elm, it's just a memory now.
Is the sycamore still there?
My great great great grandfather hollowed out a sycamore tree and lived in it for a long time.
There is a story of one our ancestors who floated down the Ohio River on a raft and when he landed he lived in the hollowed portion of a huge tree. From reading this it most likely was a giant Sycamore tree. Thanks for this video as it sheds a little little on this ancestor. Name Andrew Anderson.
I’ll look into that. Thanks!
Over 700 yrs old….amazing! Can you imagine the impressive trees that once dotted this Land!
There’s one in our pasture that’s 8ft from one side to the other.
This just turned up in my feed and I really really loved it. My side of the mountain is my all time favorite book. I can't even describe how much it impacted me, my childhood and now adult life. I'm always planning my run to that tree.
Awesome
You need to go tour Beall Woods State Park in Southeastern Illinois
It's the largest stand of virgin timber on the east side of the Mississippi
What an amazing video! Living in a Hollow tree! My great grandmother told her children about her childhood during the Civil War. Her family had a farm or plantation in Mississippi.They were driven from their home and were refugees camping in the woods. She said the family lived for a time in a HOLLOW TREE. They eventually settled in Orange, Texas, where, in the 1880’s ’ she married my great grandfather and moved to Kansas. I met her in 1960 when she was in her late 90’s and I was a girl of16. I asked her about the hollow tree, but she could not tell me any stories by then. She thought I was a boy because I was wearing pants, but remembered my Dad, so she figured I was her grandson and I could not convince her that I was his daughter. . I have collected our family history, but the hollow tree story is oral history and I do not know where it was located. Your video is a bit of validation that oral history does preserve events that can’t be documented, but should not be discounted and may eventually be proven by future family researchers. For example, my father in law always said his ancestors were knights and lived in a castle in England. He had been told this by his elders. In 2001 I connected with a distant cousin of my husband, who sent me documented history of his family. The “ castle” is a Tudor era mansion on the list of historic buildings in England, and the family were wealthy merchants who had been granted a Coat of Arms, which was still displayed over the fireplace in the house. The ancestor emigrated to Virginia colony in the mid 1600’s’ before the English civil war. So the oral history was accurate in general, only differing in detail, and had been preserved for over 300 yrs in the family. Thank you for this video I have subcribed.
That's a great story. Thank you for sharing it here! I enjoyed it immensely! 😊
Very good job. when I was a boy I liked to pick up the sycamore balls and throw them to watch the seed fly. The sycamore seems to be very scarce now.
Danny McCarter, thanks! Here in Ohio there are still plenty of sycamores, but the real big ones are kind of scarce.
We still got them in Tennessee
I saw the movie when it came out as a child,, m.s.o.t.mountain. I have been fascinated with it all my life. Love this. Thanks
Incredible. I love to find huge trees like this. But have never seen a sycamore even close to this
where I live, British Columbia, Vancouver Island.. we have Douglas Fir trees that age 800 years old that are quite similar to the Sycamore tree in size and relation. as a coniferous giant
I read that book in elementary school! I remember he called an animal Frightful I think? Good book.
I only knew I had a couple of sycamore trees on my property because I was so impressed by the gigantic leaves that I had to look up and see what kind of trees they were. I'd like to think they will live long enough to grow to enormous size !!!
I belive 'My Side of the Mountain' stirred the imagination of more children than Mark Twain's books like 'Tom Sawyer'. And to think some of those old trees are still around and growing...Amazing! Those are National Treasures.
My oldest son still mentions how much he loved reading that book .
This is cool. I am 78 and ALWAYS, ESPECIALLY IN MY YOUNGER YRS.I always wanted to "tent out" wherever. Of course, it never came to fruition. I had children and husband. LOL.Think of ALL the money one can save by living in a tent(OR TREE). LOL. It is STILL a great idea.LOL. Thanks for the vid.
Near INDIAN HILL, an area near Cincinnati a family lived in a sycamore in what is now Sycamore Township.Near that in Loveland on I275 I spotted the remains of an enormous sycamore back 40 years ago,always wanted to check it out
My old home place has a scyamore that if four men held hands in a circle they might reach around the tree. I played many days near that big tree
I climbed a sycamore when i was a kid in southeast TN but it wasnt quite that big around i mean it was a big tree tall and about two people to hug it but not room for people to sit inside of
Simply amazing. This week MTA cut down without notice live healthy trees to protect the trains. It was awful google harmon station tree massacre. People need to respect trees. What happened to the tree George Washington found. Thank you for this incredible video.
In the book portrait of a pioneer, a biography of Alex Stewart he talked about people living in hollow trees in his life time. That would have been the early 1900s. Its an amazing book.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out.
I love this book so much!!!
We have a giant Sycamore on our property in NC.
What would you do if a bear wanted to come and move in maybe it had been his Den previously or something
Ummm...put in a door. Like Bilbo Baggins did in The Hobbit.
We have a historically large cedar tree hidden in the depths of the great Dismal Swamp here on the border of NC and VA, at a state park called Merchants Mill Pond. They do a guided hike out there once a year I'm told. Have yet to visit. Also, in NY we have some pretty big oak trees that have indications that they were ritual sites of some sort, with rings of stones circling the trunk at about 50 feet from the base. Lots of Forrest folk lore in Central New York. But you'll have to find a Keeper to take you there. That's if they don't intentionally try to get you lost, first. I think my friend wanted me to feel that I had earned the privilege by trucking many miles to see it. It was well worth it, and it revealed to me a hidden culture that still exists today. If you hear a twig break when your alone in the woods... it might be the Keeper of that forest.
I believe in those Keepers! As long as you show respect and don’t talk or even think about cutting or chopping anything, its safe. They can make you get lost or drop a branch , make the trail disappear. We went on a “day hike” ( yeah, right) to walk up to the top of Mt Plichuck in Western WA Cascade range foothills. There was an old abandoned Fire lookout post on top with a panorama view. Our guide, a friend who knew the trail, got way too far ahead of us..left us behind, We lost the trail when it was blocked by a huge tree-fall, and followed a trail sign made of sticks and small stones to a detour. We were diverted into clearing where the trail disappeared and suddenly the straps on my husbands backpack broke..and it fell off. We saw a large stone slab,like an altar that had a bunch of wilted wildflowers on it..like an offering……we sat down and rested and left some tobacco there as an offering, too. We hunted for a trail back or out and followed a track that led us into a swampy bog up against a cliff….we were good and lost!! We heard voices and high above were hikers coming down the mountain, and they guided us to the true trail again..We did finish the hike, but had to hike down in total dark..no moon and no flashlight..which must have been lost when the backpack fell off. All the while remembering that only a month before 2 hikers had vanished on that mountain and had not been found..or ever were as far as I know. We have always thought that we had an encounter with the Guardian Spirit of the mountain in the clearing that day and were allowed to leave safely. The Indians out here teach that a tobacco offering is a good thing to do to thank the spirits in nature.Other things to offer are food, flowers , sage , or even a hair offering., pluck a hair or comb out a few..when camping and let the breeze take it. Our hike took place before cell phones, and even if we did have one, there prob would have been no signal up there…It is never a good idea to split up a group like what happened to us. Our guide should not have abandoned us because we did not know the trail. I sure would like to see that hidden grove in NY. I am glad that it is protected from profane vandals. Westerners who have never been that far East, like me, tend to visualise NY as a solid mass of concrete and skyscrapers.What a good feeling it brings to know that there are still wild spaces beyond civilisation. 🌲