>>2838951
so, that's the story, on many (most?) high elevation (2500 ft +) eastern ridgelines - especially towards the south - every single tree was logged and doing so led to a chain of events (leaving wood scraps that were then set on fire by railroad sparks and lightning) that burned up the soil - and also the soil depended on the nutrients from the decomposing conifer needles - and so without those the fungal and bacterial profile changes and what grows back is much more deciduous-dominant as well as disturbed (lots of rugged heath bushes that probably wouldn't have been there)

you can still find pockets of untouched evergreens, but its mostly cove hemlocks - there's a few patches of ridgeline fir for instance in the endless mountains of PA on Bartlett Mountain but you have to ascend a very steep rugged hill to access them.