Camp Michaux Visit

Today students in the Aerial Photo Interpretation class visited the site of Camp Michaux near Pine Grove State Park. This site was originally a farm, later a CCC camp, a POW camp, a church youth camp, and finally reverted to forests. We recorded waypoint with a GPS. These will be included in a GIS map. Then we will georeference digitized aerial photos to show how the site changed over time. That part is for a later lab. for today we followed the self-guided from the Cumberland County Historical Society.

Here are a few scenes from today.

 Foundation of a garage that has the inscribed name of a German prisoner on one pier.

 Historical marker

The emblem of the POW camp is inscribed on this stone.

 Checking out the emblem.

Posing at the old fountain, built by the CCC members.

Flagpole from the CCC days. It points to the North.

Walkway lined by spruce trees.

This stairway to nowhere was built by the CCC members. It was used by the church camp groups for photos. 

Surviving wall of the old barn.

Visitor from Montana

On September 24,  Penn State Mont Alto alum Robin Jenkins spoke to the forestry club about his long career with the Forest Service in Montana doing everything from public education to timber harvesting supervision. He told many interesting stories and encouraged today's foresters to try out the Forest Service!

Graduation 2015

It was a perfect day for graduation. Congratulations to the 2015 class of forest technicians at Penn State Mont Alto! Keep up the tradition.

Veterans and 9/11 Memorial Park

In February students from the Forest Management Practices class visited the Veterans and 9/11 Memorial Park at the Letterkenny Chapel to discuss ideas for developing a trail in the wooded area behind the Chapel. In the future forest technology students will volunteer to clean up the vegetation.









We had the opportunity to see the inside of the chapel, which was partially built by Italian POWs in WWII.

Work at the Birch Run Reservoir Replanting Area

After working at Greene Twp Park and lunch, we went to Birch Run, the old Chambersburg Reservoir, to help thin out the European alder and free trees from the tree planting tubes. We also brought out the tubes and their poles so they can be re-used by the Bureau of Forestry.

Community Service Planting Trees

On April 18, 2015, forestry and other Mont Alto students planted trees at the Greene Township Park in partnership with several other community groups. The trees were provided as part of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay tree-planting effort. It was also part of Franklin County's Trees for Tomorrow effort.

Making Bitmore Sticks

Looking like a yard stick, the Biltmore stick is one of the original tools used for measuring tree diameters and heights. It was originally developed by Carl Schenck at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. (Click here for more information.) This spring freshman forest technology students at Penn State Mont Alto have made custom Biltmore sticks synchronized to their own arm lengths. This afternoon they checked them out on trees on campus.

Leveling Lab

This year has been very difficult for outdoor forestry labs with all the storms and the resulting class delays. Yesterday we took advantage of a break between storms to do an introduction to leveling in Surveying.