Hanging By A Thread
Literally, to be attached only by single thread, strand, or something similar.
To be perilously close to failing, dying, or resulting in a bad outcome.
Source: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com
One feature of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore epitomizes “hanging by a thread.” It’s the lone pine tree atop Chapel Rock.
Life finds a way even in precarious places. Chapel Rock on Lake Superior has a single mighty pine tree perched atop its column. But how can it survive? The small amount of land and soil on the top of the rock is insufficient to sustain this sizable tree.
The “rope” stretching from the edge of the rock spire to the main bluff isn’t a rope. It’s actually a root. It branches out and taps into the abundant nutrients and water on the bluff.
Source: www.kuriositas.com
How Can This Be?
Trees don’t grow roots in thin air. So, how did a tree root come to hang in midair and connect the mainland?
The type of stone making up the Chapel Rock spire holds the answer. It’s made up of relatively soft 500-million-year-old Cambrian age sandstone. Sandstone erodes easily.
Around 7,500 years ago, this was the shoreline of prehistoric Lake Nipissing. Over the millennia, wind and water sculpted the cliffs into wonderful shapes ranging from caves and arches to formations that look like human faces to turrets.
Chapel Rock is one of those wonderful shapes along the cliffs. The 5 to 6-foot-thick dome of Chapel Rock is supported by five pillars 25 feet tall and 4-6 feet thick. And it used to be connected to the mainland by an arch.
In the original 1831 description of Chapel Rock by Douglass Houghton, “The span of this arch is 32 feet, as viewed from the water…The strength of the roof thus upheld must be considerable since it is clothed with timber, and from the very centre shoots, spire-like, a lofty pine.”
That lofty pine began as a seedling 250 years ago. Living at the edge of a cliff, it naturally sent roots across the arch to an inland source of water and nutrients.
One day in the 1940s, the sandstone arch had eroded to a point where it could no longer bear its own weight. The entire archway collapsed leaving only a pillar behind. The connection to the mainland was lost.
Yet somehow, the roots somehow managed to survive the collapse and continue to nourish the tree to this day.
The Shot
The photograph was taken from a Pictured Rocks boat cruise out of Munising, Michigan several weeks ago. I highly recommend taking a cruise if you visit the park.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus