I do think there were mills in Pendleton. There is, as far as I know one in Hermiston, or Umatilla as the last year I worked, I filled in on the eastside and they were hauling logs to a mill in one of those places that are in wheat country. As for weight? I dunno. I do know that one logger in the Randle area could put a heck of a lot of bd ft (according to the scale tickets) on his trucks. That was old growth DF from a creek bottom where the punkins grew, and his regular trucks were most likely overheight. We were amazed at the scale of some of his loads, and that was on tickets from "The Bureau". The Brainiac sale administrator who was seldom wrong, called the bureau to make sure there wasn't a mistake.
Once a year, the state weigh cops would come out and weigh trucks. There were no secret codes. The first few trucks to get stopped and ticketed would radio out in plain language and there were discussions starting out with, "How much did they get you for?" We would find logs kicked off in the woods on those days, and the ends sawn off so the brands would be gone. Most of us in sale admin could tell where the logs were from, we kind of had a feel for it, without the brands showing. I don't know how they got the logs off without injury, but they did.
On one weigh day, there were many trucks belonging to Fred Moe strung out between Randle and over Baby Shoe pass onto the Trout Lake district. They were parked, and waiting for the weigh cops to go away. The weigh cops were trying to wait them out. They finally went into the woods to weigh the trucks. They had a state patrol trooper along and they issued a lot of tickets that day..
The old logger always seemed to have been tipped off and he would not haul on the annual weigh day.
I was on a fire on the Umatilla. All I recall of Dale is that there were a few houses there. We were camped in Desolation Meadow ?? and in and out of the wilderness for two weeks doing some running away from that fire. It was in bug infested lodgepole and didn't know to obey fire behavior. It made a daily blowup around noon and would run downhill. As is the case, a heavy rain finally got it under control. Our FMO at home was steaming mad when they made him send crews out. The Randle area was dry and he'd fume about how our timber was worth a heck of a lot more than the eastside peckerpoles and he needed his folks at home just in case. We were never antsy to go away on fires, either. We made as much money on our own district making overtime burning and patrolling.
Once a year, the state weigh cops would come out and weigh trucks. There were no secret codes. The first few trucks to get stopped and ticketed would radio out in plain language and there were discussions starting out with, "How much did they get you for?" We would find logs kicked off in the woods on those days, and the ends sawn off so the brands would be gone. Most of us in sale admin could tell where the logs were from, we kind of had a feel for it, without the brands showing. I don't know how they got the logs off without injury, but they did.
On one weigh day, there were many trucks belonging to Fred Moe strung out between Randle and over Baby Shoe pass onto the Trout Lake district. They were parked, and waiting for the weigh cops to go away. The weigh cops were trying to wait them out. They finally went into the woods to weigh the trucks. They had a state patrol trooper along and they issued a lot of tickets that day..
The old logger always seemed to have been tipped off and he would not haul on the annual weigh day.
I was on a fire on the Umatilla. All I recall of Dale is that there were a few houses there. We were camped in Desolation Meadow ?? and in and out of the wilderness for two weeks doing some running away from that fire. It was in bug infested lodgepole and didn't know to obey fire behavior. It made a daily blowup around noon and would run downhill. As is the case, a heavy rain finally got it under control. Our FMO at home was steaming mad when they made him send crews out. The Randle area was dry and he'd fume about how our timber was worth a heck of a lot more than the eastside peckerpoles and he needed his folks at home just in case. We were never antsy to go away on fires, either. We made as much money on our own district making overtime burning and patrolling.