Cranberry Glades Stop 1

Introduction

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Listen to a narration of this entry's description by June Harless Center User.

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The boardwalk through the Cranberry Glades area provides an opportunity to explore the eight-acre Round Glade and the twenty-eight-acre Flag Glade. Because of the fragile nature of the ecosystem, visitors are cautioned to stay on the boardwalk constructed by the U.S. Forest Service. The boardwalk through the bog forest which is a wetland area between the bogs. About one hour is required to walk along the boardwalk to read the interpretative signage, take a few photographs and listen for the calls of the many songbirds that call the Cranberry Glades home.

Images

Backstory and Context

Author-Uploaded Audio

Listen to a narration of this entry's description by June Harless Center User.

Text-to-speech Audio

This forest is populated with trees that can tolerate “wet feet” in the saturated soils. As visitors approach the bogs, they will travel through a shrub zone where low woody plants like the wild raisin, speckled alder, and willow are common. The dominant plant in the bogs are sphagnum and other mosses with mixed herbaceous plants some of which are carnivorous owing to the lack of available nutrients in the open bog.

Visitors to the area can not only appreciate this unique ecosystem, but they can also consider how this area would have appeared just following the most recent ice age when the bogs were open ponds. During one's walk along the boardwalk, visitors can look for reddish hue sphagnum moss making up much of the glade floor and also try to find carnivorous sundews hidden among the sphagnum. Those visiting Cranberry Glades in June or early July you may even be treated to blooms from the orchids in the open bogs.