Photo by Michael Davie Will Blozan has a bird’s eye view from his tree top perch on a dead hemlock near Cosby, Tenn. Photo by Michael Davie Will Blozan is shown ascending the largest hemlock ever climbed. It contained more than 1,500 feet of wood.

In the early spring the hemlocks are easy to spot. Alongside the budding maples and oaks, the hemlock is a large, evergreen tree with a soft-textured appearance like a shaggy green coat. These hemlocks are on the brink of local extinction. For Black Mountain arborist Will Blozan, the hemlock problem has become a personal crusade.

The hemlocks are being systematically destroyed by a non-native insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid. This small black insect has been killing hemlock trees in urban and sensitive forest habitats. The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) sucks sap at the base of the needles. The needles fall off and twigs often die back. Eventually, the trees die.

For Blozan, the investigation of the hemlocks and this plight is like a Sherlock Holmes investigation. "I have found HWA throughout Montreat and just one mile from the center of Black Mountain," Blozan said. "It is well established in the Asheville Watershed and several locations in Asheville and Woodfin. Eggs have already hatched this year and the HWA is rapidly expanding its range."

The problems of the hemlocks weighs heavily on the arboreal community. The hemlock woolly adelgid has the potential to drive the hemlocks to local extinction within several years. The hemlocks may survive as a species in colder regions, but they could disappear from their oldest habitat in the country.

Blozan has been covered by TNN for a special called "Unspoiled Country", interviewed by Dan Rather of CBS News, and covered in the Wall Street Journal. Blozan takes the hemlock threat seriously. He dedicates a large part of his business and personal time towards a better understanding of the insect and the hemlocks. Never before has such an undertaking been proactively performed- before the complete regional demise of a species. Blozan asks, "What do we really know about such ecologically disrupted species as the American chestnut? How big did they really get, how tall and how much wood could they grow? Where did they reach their maximum development?"

Blozan’s work with the Eastern Native Tree Society (ENTS), of which he is currently president, focuses on gathering data on the attributes of eastern and Carolina hemlocks. He spends as much time as possible exploring and measuring the trees in the natural habitats of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and places as far away as the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness in northern Michigan, and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Bob Leverett, co-founder of ENTS, describes Blozan’s passion for trees. "People don’t realize how intense Will is about his love of trees and his focus on forest documentation. Large parts of the national forest could disappear without anyone documenting them."

When Blozan is not deducing the plight of hemlocks in the Swannanoa Valley, he is visiting the Great Smoky Mountains national park to document the hemlocks. The southern Appalachians have the best growing conditions for eastern and Carolina hemlocks. Nowhere else on earth can you find hemlocks over 160 feet tall. In fact, it was Blozan who found the first woolly adelgid infestation in South Carolina, while climbing several trees for new world height records.

Documenting hemlocks in the Appalachians might sound as adrenalin-filled as bird watching. But to accurately measure these giants of the forest, Blozan uses ropes and sling-shots to scale these trees to the very pinnacles. Measuring trees is closer to extreme rock climbing in reality.

Of the 20 or so trees accurately measured over 160 feet, all but a half-dozen grow in the Smokies. The tallest tree ever located, climbed, and tape-dropped for a measurement accuracy within one inch stood 169'10" feet. Blozan climbed this tree with his business partner, Brian Hinshaw, in April 1998. The team also measured the displacement volume of the tree to determine how much wood the tree contained. The tall tree scaled out to a"twig" over 1000 cubic feet of wood- enough, if milled, to yield over 7500 board feet of timber.

Blozan’s company, Appalachian Arborists, has been hired by the National Park Service to assist in a study of the adelgids and how to systemically treat old-growth trees.

"Climbing the old-growth trees for this study is exciting, as the results of the National Park Service study will assist me in my efforts to save the hemlocks," he says. "We have learned that timing is essential. Trying to systemically treat hemlocks in the summer is a waste of your money and ineffective against the adelgids."

Blozan’s dedication to accuracy and the thousands of trees in the ENTS database will provide the most accurate snapshot of the species; where it reaches its best development, how tall it gets, and how massive. Blozan hopes his work with the Eastern Native Tree Society will assist future restoration efforts should the hemlocks get wiped out.

"Why do hemlocks get so big, tall and massive in the Smokies?" he asks. "We need to understand the significance of these big tree sites and individual tree characteristics to fully be prepared for potential restoration efforts."