Imagine how this land must have looked just after the glacier melted about 11,800 years ago. It was a landscape of sand and gravel stretching in every direction. No trees would have blocked your view. Only a few hardy plants struggled to survive. From this bleak beginning, plants, by their living and dying, have slowly created a layer of topsoil covering these sandy hills. Living communities of plants and animals have transformed this once-sterile ground into the productive forest that now surrounds you.