Hauling slash up a 40 degree slope?

[newguy]

Great site!!!! My first post, have been reading forums for 3 years and have learned more here than in any class I have attended. Thanks!!

I have a job where we have to haul slash, small diameter 2'-6' lengths, up a 40 degree slope. I have a skid steer with a winch and grapple. Cannot get machine down hill to slash piles. Have used tarps and straps in past but isn't efficient. I am thinking of using a large poly cargo sled to be winched up hill to chipper. Any other ideas or suggestions?

 

[jomoco]

Watch the first episode of "Axe Men" on the history channel, it might give you some idea of how the pros deal with getting loads up an incline.

You'll find the amount of good advice you can get here can be greatly enhanced by posting pictures of the job you need advice on.

Good luck

jomoco

 

[newguy]

Saw the first episode of ax men. The stuff im moving isn't near the size of the stuff on the show. Its mostly branches and small junk the client wants out. Thanks

 

[StihlRockin']

On the hillside nearest the lake in the backyards of clients, I would have to work with steep inclines. If you attach a pulley up high on a tree and run a bull rope through it, you can attach the rope to a pile of brush/wood that was stacked, then attach to truck and pull it up the hill and not have the rope drag on the crest of the hill point.

StihlRockin'

 

[TimberMcPherson]

Heli or crane or winch a chipper down to the pile

 

[CLEARVIEW TREE]

Brush up hill real fast!

Lay a strap on ground. Stack cut ends on strap facing uphill. When pile is sufficient size pull one eye of strap thru the other like a noose and cinch tite. Tie to rope and walk up to chipper. Attach pulley to chipper(mine hooks above feed table-vermeer 1250), and run rope thru and back down trail to a beast of burden( for me i pull with f250 diesel, Kawasaki brute force 650 4x4, or kubota tractor). Start ezin back and in seconds brush is at the chipper!!! Do it all the time in some real nasty places and it works great!!!

 

[newguy]

Great suggestions, Thanks!! Anyone use heavy duty tarps? There is lots of reely small stuff that falls out of the piles when using the strap method described on the previous post.

More history, excavator pushed trees down the slope to clear building site several years ago. All branches brittle and of course the mess is in the customers "View Corridor".
Thanks!

 

[waldini]

burn it

 

[CLEARVIEW TREE]

alternate brush pull

How bout 2or3 straps with a tarp on top so the debris wont fall thru! Dont burn on a slope though, that starts a mean forest fire. Hard to control on a slope since it generally goes uphill.opcorn:

 

[ShoerFast]

burn it

Can't even 'think' about burning here!

This is not my mainstay, but I have taken jobs were everything needs to lay flat, not chipped, but flat (fire mitigation)

Won't work everywhere, but with trees like Douglas fir and Spruce, that really don't have a lot of huge limbs, you can blend in several yards of slash with a chainsaw.

Lay down a layer of good straight lengths of wood, like a pallet. Stack your slash on top of that and slice n dice, running the longest bar you have cutting just to the wood in the bottom layer. Restack the slash and repeat till there is nothing more then short lengths. Rake the chaff into the surroundings.

You will find hiders that didn't get sliced n diced at first, cut them up as you finish the bottom layers wood, restack it and re cut it. It dose not take as long as you might think, makes a fair job and helps prevent soil erosion.

 

[ASD]

get a cargo net and winch it up

 

[Panama]

Use an old junk yard truck hood, with two 55 gallon barrells bolted to it with the openings facing down hill. Stuff the material into the barrells (keeps it from snagging) and winch it up or pull with a truck, while someone walks along and guides it. If pulling space is a problem, attach a pully to your trailer hitch and run the load line up hill, through the pully, and tie to the base of a tree, one that is behind the truck. You get twice the length of pull for the distance the truck travels. Just go slow, you also get twice the truck speed.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

High tie a block or carabiner to a tree on the top of the slope so the buts do not dig in as you are forwarding the brush with the drag line.

 

[Metals406]

For around $400.00 in steel, you could make a drag sled (out of 9 gauge expanded metal, and .120 wall square tube). Or less, if you have a local steel scrap yard. Or an old pickup-box trailer would work. . . . A lot of times you can find those for free (or really reasonable). Hook your winch cable to the tongue, and lower it down the hill, fill it, winch it back up.