Several intense storm fronts moved through the area over a two day period recently. Each storm brought 75+mph straight line winds and over a dozen tornados with the last one. One of my primary volunteer duties with the IDNP is monitoring and reporting on trail conditions. So the day after the last storm passed I went to check out the Tolleston Dunes trail, which is heavily wooded with Black Oak. I was not surprised to find significant damage along the trail, which I finally reported as being effectively impassable.
This is the scene that greeted me when I arrived at the trail head. I knew on the way to the trail that things would be in bad shape because all of northwest Indiana was without power east of Gary.
It may be a bit difficult to see the blockage in the midst of all the normal ground cover, but the trail goes straight through the middle of this image. The crown of a large oak is blocking the trail at this point.
This was one of the easier blockages to get past, the crown of the tree fell mostly off the trail and I only had to step over some large branches.
Here the trail is in the middle of the photograph, completely obscured by the fallen tree. What is not apparent is the fact that the tree fell at the top of a dune ridge and the other side is a steep hill down to a marshy area. This was the first spot that was a bit strenuous to get past as it required a detour off trail, pushing through thorny vines and bramble on a steep sandy incline.
There were probably more than a dozen blockages like this one where the more open lower trunk was lying across the trail. These spots I considered minor blockages because they were easy to climb over.
Usually when you find a tree down on the trail it was rotting or dead to begin with. But here we had many healthy trees, with fully branched crowns that were toppled by the high winds. This tree fell with it’s length along the trail and is what I reported as a major blockage. Detouring around this tree off trail was not easy. It turns out that much of the tangled underbrush you have to push through is covered in long and sharp thorns. By the time I got back to the car I had several dozen puncture wounds, like bloody pin pricks, all over my legs, torso and arms.
Another large and formerly healthy tree down on the trail. Most of this trail runs atop a series of dune ridges, so the trees here were particularly exposed to the winds.
Usually when I encounter a tree down on a trail I send a photo, gps coordinates and a description of the blockage to park maintenance so they know right where to go and what equipment to bring. This time there were so many blockages I simply put together this map showing the location of the major blockages, the minor ones were too numerous to bother with. I recommended that the trail be closed until it could be cleaned up, my supervisor agreed with my assessment.
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