# yarding downhill with a yoader



## captainsteep (Jun 7, 2009)

Well it looks like I will have to learn downhill yarding sooner than i thought, The mill dose not want to build a road across the top of the job we have been doing so i was looking for tricks to do this. Would you keep the skyline high in the air so the turn was suspended in the air to keep them from banging around and getting out of controll,or low to the ground and drag them down the hill for some controll.


----------



## oregoncutter (Jun 7, 2009)

*It depends*

Allways hang You're skyline with plenty of lift, don't rely on the friction of the logs on the ground to hold You back, You should be running a haulback line to hold the riggin back as You skid them in and You will have to have one anyway to haul the riggin back up the hill right, I have downhill logged here in oregon under swingyarders, but not with a Yoader, do You have drums for a skyline, skidline, and haulback? Also a good riggingslinger will do You good. Alot can go wrong downhill yarding and by having the butts too close to the ground You take alot of risk upending one or breaking chokers, and it all rollls downhill, on the other hand suspending too much adds alot of uneeded tension on Your'e riggin and lines, and a loss of control.


----------



## oregoncutter (Jun 7, 2009)

*Alot depends on the terrain*

How You go about it depends on the ground Your;e working on, if You were nearby I'd come give You a hand, since Iusually just put in a 6 hour day, and at times I miss working with a yarder side, and the challenges that come with it.


----------



## slowp (Jun 7, 2009)

oregoncutter said:


> Allways hang You're skyline with plenty of lift, don't rely on the friction of the logs on the ground to hold You back, You should be running a haulback line to hold the riggin back as You skid them in and You will have to have one anyway to haul the riggin back up the hill right, I have downhill logged here in oregon under swingyarders, but not with a Yoader, do You have drums for a skyline, skidline, and haulback? Also a good riggingslinger will do You good. Alot can go wrong downhill yarding and by having the butts too close to the ground You take alot of risk upending one or breaking chokers, and it all rollls downhill, on the other hand suspending too much adds alot of uneeded tension on Your'e riggin and lines, and a loss of control.




Right on. You need a 3 drum machine and a good yarder engineer too. It helps to have a flattening of the slope down by the yarder so the logs will slow a little bit. I don't know the mechanics, but there can be a problem with yarder engineer coordination if the drums have to be regulated at the different speeds by the engineer. I think that is when there is no drum interlock? Help me, we learned this a long time ago....The yarder engineer on the Westcoaster yarder had to work in the brush while downhilling as he couldn't coordinate things. 

You will tend to damage more of the standing trees so it is best to do this in the fall or whenever the sap quits running so much. 

Expect your production to be cut in half.


----------



## hammerlogging (Jun 7, 2009)

Need a haulback.

Or, a road to the top.

Or, a new carriage, the kind (teleforest)? that propoels itself on the skyline, but is supposed to be questionable at best, lower payload, and eats up skyline, probably pricey, but it might be a nice addition to a (probably) 2 drum yoder.


----------



## oregoncutter (Jun 7, 2009)

*Self propelled?*

Do You have a link where a guy could see a picture of that. I''ll bet it would be hell on a skyline, and probably use a little extra fuel.


----------



## 2dogs (Jun 7, 2009)

Make sure the yarder's brakes are in top shape! If a turn slams into the yoader you'll be in a heap of trouble.


----------



## captainsteep (Jun 7, 2009)

no it has 3 drums, why cant i put the skyline up like normal(other than up hill) put a snatchblock in the spar tree run the skidline through it than put the carriage on backwards so it still pulls slack than let graviety take it down the hill(only have 100 yards or so we would have to do)to the road.


----------



## oregoncutter (Jun 7, 2009)

*riggin*

Are You going to be using a carriage or what type of riggin?


----------



## oregoncutter (Jun 7, 2009)

*You could do that!*

That's pretty short yarding You could do like You mentioned, and in theory that would work as long as You don't have to pull to hard or have heavy turns. If it was me I think I would go ahead and set up some kind of a haulback for it, or try running run it like You mentioned then if You need to run a haulback and go that route, that short of yarding it's too bad You can't get a cat or a skidder in there, I can see where You would'nt want to invest too much time in setup, is it just one road?


----------



## Kiwilogger (Jun 8, 2009)

Just finished a nasty little downhill block, short pulling, out only about 800 - 1000 yards. The sky was out, but only as a snap guy at the front. :greenchainsaw:


We had plenty of deflection, and so I used what us Kiwis call scab skyline. The tailrope, oops, I mean the "haulback," runs out from the yarder, it goes through a block which is attached by a short chain to the middle of the rigging and out to the backline, then back to the rigging. Applying the brake on your haulback provides lift. I think you guys call it the gravinski or something.... 

Works a treat, plus makes for easy shifts if you aint mobile on the backline.

Ya just need to keep a little extra pressure on yer hb, and throttle off as you are coming in to the landing.

Simple as.


----------



## hammerlogging (Jun 8, 2009)

http://www.teleforest.com/english/index2.html

got to love some of the ingenuity out there though.... them NZ can be so wonderfully positive.

I thinknthere ius more than one type of this thing, and I don't think its too highly desireable, and it sounds like the captain is going to figure out a better way. Good luck!


----------



## captainsteep (Jun 8, 2009)

Today we took the skidder put 250ft of cable on and went to the top(kind of nice running the skidder again)back over the top as far as the old girl dare go without chains on, and started cutting thumpers and skidding to the landing, work allday by the end of the day we could see joe(excavator)on the road below, so i think it wont be as bad i thought,maybe 100 yards at max.if all goes well, put some pics on tomorrow,will see what happens, oh and thanks everyone it great to come here and talk to you guys.


----------



## Kiwilogger (Jun 9, 2009)

100 yards?

Hardly worth chuckin the ropes out is it?

I'd just skid it out if possible.


----------



## captainsteep (Jun 9, 2009)

yes going to drop them down the hill to the road and get them bv the tops, see what kind of mess we can make. let you know what happens.


----------



## slowp (Jun 9, 2009)

captainsteep said:


> yes going to drop them down the hill to the road and get them bv the tops, see what kind of mess we can make. let you know what happens.



My terminology for that is "Launching." As in "launch that tree down the hill and then you can reach it."


----------



## Kiwilogger (Jun 10, 2009)

Launching, eh....

That must be like chasing the tree off the stump so hard, by the time it hits the ground, the holding wood had got sawed clean orf! :hmm3grin2orange:


----------



## slowp (Jun 10, 2009)

Kiwilogger said:


> Launching, eh....
> 
> That must be like chasing the tree off the stump so hard, by the time it hits the ground, the holding wood had got sawed clean orf! :hmm3grin2orange:



That would be launching. You might call it larnching?


----------



## Kiwilogger (Jun 11, 2009)

slowp said:


> That would be launching. You might call it larnching?


:bringit:


----------



## bullbuck (Jun 11, 2009)

"larnching"eh?i like that,i always refer to sending one down the steeps as a "dispatch"as in the train has left the station!lol and of course you always install a "flying dutchman"on all "southward bound trains!"haha


----------



## slowp (Jun 11, 2009)

Back in the evil days of doing away with the last of the old growth, we'd watch from a distance, fallers (I think they couldn't help themselves--just too tempting) launch trees off our rocky cliffs. We should have chewed them out, but it was also fun to watch. There wasn't much left of the tree after landing. :monkey:

And there weren't many trees growing in the rocks to launch.


----------



## Greystoke (Jun 11, 2009)

slowp said:


> Back in the evil days of doing away with the last of the old growth, we'd watch from a distance, fallers (I think they couldn't help themselves--just too tempting) launch trees off our rocky cliffs. We should have chewed them out, but it was also fun to watch. There wasn't much left of the tree after landing. :monkey:
> 
> And there weren't many trees growing in the rocks to launch.



It's a blast! By choice I only did it with junk timber...snags, rotten cull, limby and cobby junk. If a guy is busheling, he does not want to throw big scalers off the mountain, unless he is an air scaler, aka. thumber. Funnest I ever had with this was in LaGrande Oregon on some helicopter ground...Launched some snags and cull trees off about a 200' bluff...it was sweet! Have had a lot of nice timber in Southeast AK Growing in the bluffs where you just fall it and hope for the best, as far as saving it out.


----------



## bullbuck (Jun 11, 2009)

there is a pretty good clip on youtube titled"falling fir over cliff"or something like that?makes a real nice crash!no 200footer though


----------



## DK_stihl (Jun 11, 2009)

*video clip*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZVTuCTM9bI


----------



## bullbuck (Jun 11, 2009)

that would be the one...thanks for post


----------



## Humptulips (Jun 12, 2009)

I once "launched" an old growth fir off the back end of a down hill slackline show on the upper East fork of the Humptulips. Stove pipe pass if you're familiar with the area. Anyway it was interfering with my waste line and the FS wasn't so particular in those times about falling a tree outside the unit. It was about 5 foot and fairly tall. It done a complete upender in the air before it ever touched ground. Butt was the first thing that touched and it was so steep it sort of slid down the hill instead landing hard. Saved out to the bud.
Would have made cool film. Alas no record.


----------

