Logging places to see in the PNW?

[PB]

Hey guys/gals, a little off topic but I will be in the PNW (Seattle, Astoria, Portland and Leavenworth) in 2 weeks for the honeymoon. Are there any places that are a must to see while we are out there? I am planning on hitting up Madsens, but not sure if there are some nice logging museums or anything like that.

Any tips/advice will be greatly appreciated. The wife will be with me, so if there is shopping nearby that is nice bait.

 

[teatersroad]

Most the local historical museums in the area will have a strong logging theme, given the history. Seattle has the Museum of History and Industry, haven't been in years.

There is:

http://www.tillamookforestcenter.org Nice new facility, don't know their bent though. Only driven by a hundred times.

High Desert Museum in Bend has this:
http://www.highdesertmuseum.org/exhibits/Outdoor_Exhibits/Lazinka_Sawmill/

wasn't working the only time I was there.

Just visit the timber towns. uh, what's left of them.

 

[slowp]

Here's this. Not far from Axmen country.

http://www.camp18restaurant.com/loggingmuseum.html

 

[hammerlogging]

the road from McMinnville, OR to Beaver out on the coast will take you through some classic OR coast range and spit you out at some great coastline, head north on 101 and hit 26 back to Portland.

 

[RandyMac]

Driving the Olympic Peninsula on US 101 shows what the PNW really is.

 

[Jacob J.]

Camp 18 is a must-see if you're in the area and there's another logging museum up around Tacoma somewhere?

 

[Gologit]

If you get down around Klamath Falls, Oregon, the Collier Logging Museum is a great place for logging history. Huge display of old logging equipment, saws, and a gift shop full of logging books and memorabilia.

 

[teatersroad]

Camp 18 is a must-see if you're in the area and there's another logging museum up around Tacoma somewhere?

Ruston I think. I've always liked Tacoma, for a big pnw town. Can't speak for anything recently. Can't suffer the interstate either. But otherwise,, kinda like Tacoma.

 

[slowp]

You could get up at 0 dark thirty and follow a crummy to the woods.

Check what's in the back first.

 

[schmuck.k]

Went to Camp 6 a logging museum at Tacoma zoo.

Couple of rail mounted steam powered yarder and loader

here from another thread

 

[schmuck.k]

an old Caterpiller and logging arch made by Pacific car and foundry who owns Peterbuilt and Kenworth trucks.

here is one more thank cedarkerf

 

[PB]

Thanks for the info guys/gals.

Camp 18 is now on the itinerary. We were already planning the 101 drive, and I have done that before. It is absolutely beautiful. I can't remember the place on the way back from Ozute (sp?) but the road passes by a lake or pond with a plaque on it. The hills surrounding the site were amazing and lots of logging going on back in '05.

Slowp: the wife doesn't do 0 dark thirty. She will, but no one wants to be around her. I would love to go on some old logging roads, but the rental car probably won't get me very far.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[floyd]

Look for some BLM land in the coast range. I rode a bicycle thru the coast range on paved roads

 

[slowp]

Look for some BLM land in the coast range. I rode a bicycle thru the coast range on paved roads

Check with the locals first. Those paved roads are always sliding and slumping. Some have been torn up and are now gravel roads. Some may have been closed.

Always check first. A ranger station is a good source. Otherwise, I'd stay on the highway and county roads.

 

[Mountainman]

That Lidgerwood tower skidder at Camp 6 came from Vail, the 240,000 acre camp my father ran in later years. I was there in 1969 just after they had brought that monstrosity in and set it up at Camp 6. Back then, it had fresh paint, and looked great. Such a shame to see it now. But it still takes my breath away. That was quite an invention in its day, and weighed right at a million pounds IIRC. Took about 5 lokies to move it on the tracks. I have one photo of a Lidgerwood skidder being moved in Oregon. Unfortunately, since they were built on rails, it was easy to get them to the scrap yard later on. There are only two left that I am aware of: This one, and a cobbled up conglomeration in West Virginia.

Basically, they combined a state-of-the-art version of the McGiffert Loader with a huge donkey, and added the first steel tower to replace the spar tree. Truly an engineering masterpiece back then.

But again, I digress.

 

[Mountainman]

BTW, there were two Lidgerwood tower skidders at Vail back in the day; one was scrapped, and this one was set up at the entrance of Weyerhaeuser's Longview headquarters after it was retired. Then, it ended up at Camp 6. Originally, it was known as Number 5 Skidder.

IIRC, the Superintendent at Vail back then was someone who was known as 'the dark fellow', because of his somber mood, short temper, and harsh language. Fortunately, my father is of a different caliber.

 

[Mountainman]

To move that beast, they lowered the loading boom down to horizontal, and hooked it up to one or more lokies in front, and had another lokie or three in back to push. The tower also lowered forward, to lower the center of gravity. When they set one of these up, they raised it up off the tracks, and blocked it up high enough that it could straddle the empty rail cars on the tracks. Then, they pulled up a fresh car each time the last one was loaded, using a straw line.

I heard it said that it took about 15 men to run a setting with one of these beasts. And they were known to move a LOT of logs. Several other outfits, including Willamette, copied the design eventually, and tried to capitalize on this design.

 

[slowp]

I'm assuming they fed wood to that beast to generate the steam? I wonder how much it took? Not that there'd be a shortage. But finding dry wood nearby might be a problem.

I know nothing about steam boilers. Except that they had whistles.

 

[Mountainman]

There was plenty of cull wood to burn that would have been good grade timber by our standards. But they found that wood fired boilers were too labor intensive, even as cheap as labor was back then. So, they replaced wood fired steam with diesel fired steam. But diesel back then was crudely refined, and often turned to molasses on a cold morning, so it had its own problems. They also had a few donkeys with gas engines back in the last years of steam.

Yes, they had a whistle, and that is a whole story in itself.

Now, the REAL question is, does anyone else here know who the Pig Fornicator was in the days of oxen and skid donkeys? Actually, they used a different name that starts with 'F', but we're in mixed company.

How about the Whistle Punk?

 

[joesawer]

Tell us more!!!
And pig fornicating was before my time Lol.