# Logging places to see in the PNW?



## PB (Jun 4, 2010)

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.


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## teatersroad (Jun 4, 2010)

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.


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## slowp (Jun 4, 2010)

Here's this. Not far from Axmen  country. 

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


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## hammerlogging (Jun 5, 2010)

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.


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## RandyMac (Jun 5, 2010)

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


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## Jacob J. (Jun 6, 2010)

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


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## Gologit (Jun 6, 2010)

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.


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## teatersroad (Jun 6, 2010)

Jacob J. said:


> 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.


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## slowp (Jun 6, 2010)

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

Check what's in the back first.


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## schmuck.k (Jun 6, 2010)

Cedarkerf said:


> Went to Camp 6 a logging museum at Tacoma zoo.
> 
> Couple of rail mounted steam powered yarder and loader



here from another thread


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## schmuck.k (Jun 6, 2010)

Cedarkerf said:


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



here is one more thank cedarkerf


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## PB (Jun 6, 2010)

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!


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## floyd (Jun 6, 2010)

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


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## slowp (Jun 6, 2010)

floyd said:


> 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.


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## Mountainman (Jun 8, 2010)

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.


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## Mountainman (Jun 8, 2010)

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.


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## Mountainman (Jun 8, 2010)

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.


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## slowp (Jun 8, 2010)

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.


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## Mountainman (Jun 8, 2010)

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?


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## joesawer (Jun 8, 2010)

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


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## schmuck.k (Jun 8, 2010)

:agree2: verry interisting


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## Humptulips (Jun 9, 2010)

PB said:


> 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.
> 
> ...



Could you mean Lake Ozette?


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## madhatte (Jun 14, 2010)

Another good place to visit is Pack Forest on the way to Paradise in Mt Rainier Nat'l Forest. Actually, the road uphill from Elbe/Ashford to Paradise is pretty awesome, too.


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## PB (Jun 14, 2010)

Humptulips said:


> Could you mean Lake Ozette?



That could be it. We hiked to the coast and on the way back we drove right by it. I want to say it was national park/forest land but not positive. 



madhatte said:


> Another good place to visit is Pack Forest on the way to Paradise in Mt Rainier Nat'l Forest. Actually, the road uphill from Elbe/Ashford to Paradise is pretty awesome, too.



Thanks.  We have a quite the itinerary so far. 


Thanks for everyone's help!


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## PB (Jun 22, 2010)

Thanks for all the input guys and gals. We have had an amazing time out here so far. The 101 from Port Angeles to Astoria is an absolutely beautiful drive. Lots of logging and big trees. We stopped at Camp 18 on the way to Portland and had a good time. I really liked the memorial they had for all the loggers, it was really nice to see something like that. The old equipment was really neat, but the back shed full of old saws the real treat. The camera chose the perfect time to run out of batteries right when we got to the saws. Saw some PM Canadien, lots of Macs, 166's and P100's. 

The difference between the coast and the Cascades is amazing. The trees are relatively smaller, at least in Wenatchee. I convinced the wife that moving here isn't a bad idea. 

I will post pictures when I get back next week. Thanks again!

PS: I finally found some Ranier beer. I have been wanting to try it for quite a while. It's good, but definitely no Deschutes.


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## IllinoisJim (Jul 12, 2010)

*PNW logging*

Next time out to visit the family I must try to get to camp 18. I grew up about 20 miles from the coast in the middle of nowhere (Near Florence) - it was great. The lumber industry was still strong when I left for the military in the mid 70's but crashed not long after that. When I was a kid I remember big "wigwam" burners smoldering outside the mills to burn all the scrap wood and sawdust.

My dad's grandfather packed in to the area with mules to log it before there were roads and set up a sawmill. Dad had some interesting stories and pictures! When he was a young man he lost a hand in a sawmill accident - lots of open saws and such that would never be done today. But he never let it slow him down. Said he missed 6 weeks of work before he went back to work running cat. His hook was handy in a pinch as a ground clamp when welding, for picking up a hot part or as a wrench for a stubborn barrel bung!  He was always proud to have never taken welfare or a government handout. 

Guess I got a little off topic going down memory lane... Anyway, good to know about those museums for a future trip.


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## MS260 Fan (Nov 22, 2010)

*Camp 18 Visit*

I found this thread when I was looking for places to visit near Portland, OR. I took the advice to go to Camp 18 on my way to Astoria. I had to go out there for work last week so thought I'd explore a little. My wife met me out there on day two and we did some exploring.

We wanted to go through the mountains to see the ocean and see the huge stands of Doug Fir so I picked Astoria. Solely based on it was where one of the logging companies on Axemen was situated. JM Browning. I figured I could stop in and see the yarders and so on at their yard. We stopped at Camp 18 on the way up. Beautiful spot even in the rain. Right on a river that had salmon working their way up stream to spawn. You could see the salmon from the window where we sat to eat lunch. 

Here`s some big old 2-man saws from the banquet room in the basement of the main cabin. Bars were probably about 6ft long. I can`t believe I didn`t take any pictures of the log cabin itself. It was very well built and maintained. There were a few saws on display hidden all over the place. There were also some in the loggers memorial. I was very impressed with the memorial. As much as I wanted to snap some pictures, I didn`t. It didn`t feel right having the camera out in there.












I though this saw chain display was kind of cool. It looked more interesting in person.





Here`s one of me walking around the corner of the main building. The loggers memorial is to my left. Funny story on why I was walking over there. We drove an hour to get to Camp 18. The whole time my wife is ribbing me about driving all this way to see the axemen and their toys. Never saw a soul outside of passing cars. We get to the Camp 18 parking lot and there`s a familiar looking guy driving a nice F350 diesel slowly making his way to the side of the main building. I say, hey, that looks like Jay Browning in that truck. In this picture I was walking around to see if I was right. I got around the corner to see Jay Browning from Axmen coming out of the train caboose converted into bathrooms. I didn`t have the gumption to ask for a picture. Seemed weird to stock a normal guy coming out of a bathroom! BTW, the logs between me and the logger memorial were about 8ft in diameter!





Here`s a pic of some of the cool old equipment they have scattered everywhere. That`s one huge bandsaw at the tree line. Cutters on both sides. Very impressive.





Long story short, if you have a chance to get out that way, it`s worth your time. The trip to Astoria was a bust for seeing logging equipment. The JM Browning site I went to didn`t have anything but one Kenworth tractor. Astoria was very nice though. So hilly. There`s a very neat tower to climb. Locals said you could see Mt St. Helen`s from there on a cloudy day. It was cloudy, windy and rainy when we were up there. Didn`t see much but it was still worth the climb!


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## MS260 Fan (Nov 22, 2010)

*A few more pics*


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