Visitors to McCormick’s Creek State Park can help monitor a trail’s recovery from a March 2023 tornado.
Hikers on trail five can take a picture from a photo station overlooking tornado damage and upload it via QR code to a platform called Chronolog, which creates a time-lapse video. The park’s interpretive naturalist Jessica Filer said this helps track how the forest recovers and matures.
“Is it still going to be dominated by beeches, or will it have more oaks?” she said. “We don't know, and it'll be exciting to see that over the next 70 to 100 years of development.”
Related: McCormick’s Creek to reopen two trails closed after last year’s tornado
More than 100 people contributed photos to the time-lapse since Oct. 30, 2024. Filer expects it to be a 70-year project but wants it to last as long as possible.
National parks such as Indiana Dunes and Saguaro also use time-lapses to monitor environmental change. For McCormick’s Creek, Filer said it allows people to help while remaining safe.
“It's very dangerous to remove tornado debris,” she said. “This just gives our locals a very unique opportunity to volunteer and help us be able to see the landscape changes over time.”
To reach the photo station, Filer said hikers can park at either the nature center or the Pine Bluff Shelter, then hike trail eight to trail five. She said the station is about halfway to Wolf Cave.
Filer said trail five’s loop hasn’t reopened yet, but hiking from the nature center to Wolf Cave and back is almost three miles.
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