A tragedy unfolds at Dingmans Falls

By Pamela Chergotis
DINGMANS FALLS — First, the bad news: Dingmans Falls will never be the same again. The snowstorms of March crashed the canopy that kept the ravine in that deliciously cool, deep shade beloved by hemlocks and rhododendron, and people too. Think of a cathedral with a breach in its roof, and the sun beating into the sanctuary.
The lovely boardwalks that allowed visitors to meander the depths of this magical forest were also smashed when the hemlocks cracked and tumbled under the weight of the snow. The walks can be fixed — and that’s the good news. The path leading to the bottom of the falls is already repaired, and the much tougher work to be done on the steps and walkways leading to the upper falls will be finished too, probably by spring, according to park officials.
But there’s no denying that Dingmans Falls has been forever changed. And it’s not just the snow that’s to blame. The summer’s relentless rain mightily challenged the heroic trail workers who have spent the season clearing, and often re-clearing, the paths. The hemlocks, among our most majestic native trees, skidded down the steep soggy slopes, landslide fashion.
It was a very emotional time for those who work at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, said Kathleen Sandt, Public Information Officer for the National Park Service. She led a press tour last Friday to show progress at the falls.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t cry today in front of all the reporters,” she told the Courier.
Climate change hits homeMaybe the hemlocks would have stood their ground were it not for the woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that sucks the sap out of hemlocks and spruces. The fragile trees on the perimeter were the first to go and left the trees on the inside vulnerable, said Bill Tagye, the Parks Roads and Trails Facility Manager.
The crippling snow, the unusually relentless rain, the invasion of species from the south — they all have the earmarks of global warming. Storms are getting much more powerful, knocking down trees and powerlines and leaving local residents in the dark for days and weeks, and without access to their beloved parks.
That is “absolutely” the case, said Sandt.
What will happen now to the rhododendrons, whose luxuriant blooms attracted visitors from all over the world in late summer? They require not just shade but an acidic soil, provided by fallen hemlock needles. Other plants that normally do not grow in the ravine are already sprouting up. The remaining hemlocks will share space with red maples and silver birches.
The walkways turned slick and slimy for the lack of use, Tagye said. The surface was as slippery as ice, he said.
The park service took the opportunity to spend their emergency/contingency funding to build a more sustainable infrastructure. The new boards have more traction and are spaced father apart.
A bounty of expertiseMaking repairs to the falls area requires tremendous expertise. Certified stone masons, hydrologists, and arborists have all been at work repairing the damage, Sandt said.
Local residents, heartbroken at the prospect of losing access to the park, offered to roll up their sleeves, rev up their chainsaws, and get to work after the March storms. But this sensitive area, with its unique ecology, endangered plants, and steep sides, is a natural treasure unlike a typical backyard. And the work to be done is extremely dangerous: fallen trees overlap one another in many layers. Cutting into one tree, if not done right might spring another like a catapult, or cause a collapse. To achieve this kind of surgical precision requires four days of technical training with a chainsaw. Local residents John Christman, Jesse Rourke, and Jesse Merbler are among the 11 seasonal trailworkers who’ve put in long days clearing paths. Sometimes, they said, they’ll arrive in the morning only to find that the backbreaking work of the day before has been undone by another fallen tree.
Whenever there’s a close call, it’s regarded as a “lesson learned,” said Sandt — an opportunity to prevent it from happening again. After a recent “lesson learned,” when workers were removing a tree that had started to wobble, they gathered to methodically go over what had just happened, and agreed to use a winch next time. They then share their lesson with park personnel around the country.
By the numbersTo get money for repairs, the park service has to compete with national park all over the country, and that means famous places like Yellowstone and Yosemite.
Still, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation area is the 23rd most visited park in the nation. Sandt reports that the park just received under $800,000 in emergency/contingency funding for storm damage repairs for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. All of that money must be spent by that date.
Of that sum, $290,00 is going into Dingmans Falls and another $319,000 is for tree removal from trails, structures and fences at Childs Park, another site devastated by the late winter storms.
The initial estimate for Childs was $1.3 million, Sandt said.
“That includes planning, design and construction of the existing and new (where necessary) trails, which will not be done this year,” she said. “Even if we had all of the money we needed, the volume of work is too big to accomplish in six months, especially when you consider that the damages were widespread across the park.”
As for Dingmans Falls, it’s expected that visitors will once again get to stroll the walks to see that big, beautiful cataract rushing down the ravine. And when they look up, they’ll still see hemlocks towering overhead with, perhaps, a greater appreciation than ever before.