With the talk about high stumps and bad stuff from Axemen, I took some pictures while working and getting a unit ready for yarding. Here's how the process goes around here.
A logger who knows yarding equipment capabilities and what they need for lines to hang on, takes flagging and flags in what are called Skyline Corridors.
He needs to run a perfect, straight line, and there needs to be a sturdy tree at the end to use as a tail tree. There need to be stumps or trees at the landing for guylines. Sometimes the guys have to make several trips up the hill to get it right. When they do, I get called in and I take several quarts of paint, a paintgun, and in this weather...water, and I start down and up, or in this case, up and down each corridor marking any trees that aren't already marked to cut, so the lines can fit through. I use a 12 foot spacing, 6 feet on each side. I'll mark wider on the bottom side if on a sidehill and sometimes a little wider for downhill yarding. Here's the corridor I headed up. They used pink flagging.
Along the way, if I notice something unusual or scary, I'll talk to the cutters about it so they know. Here's a very scary to me hangup or beartrap. I told the head cutter about it and he knows who will be in that strip and their abilities. In this case, it'll be an extremely experienced cutter.
Here's how steep the unit is up here. The crook on the bottom of the tree is called Pistol Butt.
At last, I see the tail tree. The 3 bands of pink flagging mean don't cut it to the fallers. I put a blue L and stump mark on it so the HOOKTENDER can cut it down to derig it faster. We like to leave a bit of down wood in the unit. It makes for bug, slug and snail habitat and decays to make the soil richer.
Things to look for in a tail tree? Around here Douglas-fir is the preferred species. It needs to be sound, fairly large, and have good roots. The soils here are mostly vocanic pumice, and there is rock up on the ridge where this tree is, so I will make another trip up later with the hooktender, to OK and slap paint on nearby trees he will pick out for guying up the tail tree, or using what we call Twisters to add more support. The yarder will be a Madill 071 which also was used by the one crew on Axemen.
Unlike the guy who has to flag in the corridors, if I have worked with them before, and know they do things straight and right, I can take a shortcut across the hill, over to the next tail tree and repeat the process but head back to the landing.
NEXT: Cutting
A logger who knows yarding equipment capabilities and what they need for lines to hang on, takes flagging and flags in what are called Skyline Corridors.
He needs to run a perfect, straight line, and there needs to be a sturdy tree at the end to use as a tail tree. There need to be stumps or trees at the landing for guylines. Sometimes the guys have to make several trips up the hill to get it right. When they do, I get called in and I take several quarts of paint, a paintgun, and in this weather...water, and I start down and up, or in this case, up and down each corridor marking any trees that aren't already marked to cut, so the lines can fit through. I use a 12 foot spacing, 6 feet on each side. I'll mark wider on the bottom side if on a sidehill and sometimes a little wider for downhill yarding. Here's the corridor I headed up. They used pink flagging.
Along the way, if I notice something unusual or scary, I'll talk to the cutters about it so they know. Here's a very scary to me hangup or beartrap. I told the head cutter about it and he knows who will be in that strip and their abilities. In this case, it'll be an extremely experienced cutter.
Here's how steep the unit is up here. The crook on the bottom of the tree is called Pistol Butt.
At last, I see the tail tree. The 3 bands of pink flagging mean don't cut it to the fallers. I put a blue L and stump mark on it so the HOOKTENDER can cut it down to derig it faster. We like to leave a bit of down wood in the unit. It makes for bug, slug and snail habitat and decays to make the soil richer.
Things to look for in a tail tree? Around here Douglas-fir is the preferred species. It needs to be sound, fairly large, and have good roots. The soils here are mostly vocanic pumice, and there is rock up on the ridge where this tree is, so I will make another trip up later with the hooktender, to OK and slap paint on nearby trees he will pick out for guying up the tail tree, or using what we call Twisters to add more support. The yarder will be a Madill 071 which also was used by the one crew on Axemen.
Unlike the guy who has to flag in the corridors, if I have worked with them before, and know they do things straight and right, I can take a shortcut across the hill, over to the next tail tree and repeat the process but head back to the landing.
NEXT: Cutting
