It's a Pacific Northwest thing... you wouldn't understand!

[Tzed250]

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It boggles my mind to think about all the control that the government has on the wood out west. It is not nearly so bad in this neck of the woods. The man on the ground with a saw in his hands still rules the day here. Too steep for mechanical harvesting.

It is the coal that everyone around here wants to get their panties in a bunch over...


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[Burvol]

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It boggles my mind to think about all the control that the government has on the wood out west. It is not nearly so bad in this neck of the woods. The man on the ground with a saw in his hands still rules the day here. Too steep for mechanical harvesting.

It is the coal that everyone around here wants to get their panties in a bunch over...


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We got a fair bit of tower ground out here lol

 

[Jacob J.]

Nope, thank you but nope. I want to be head of the USFS, BLM, and every other government agency concerning timber. I might not last long but they'd sure know I'd been there.

I have a feeling the export market would open up...

 

[slowp]

We got a fair bit of tower ground out here lol

It used to be everything except for the occasional blowdown salvage was tower ground here. We would have high lead towers working on flat ground. They could go all through the rainy season that way. Our roads were all well rocked and well taken care of. We had mostly clearcuts going.

Then thinning started and there was more skidder ground. Now I fear that some of the planners of the upcoming sales are convinced that skidders are gentler on the ground than a skyline operation. I'll be working to change that line of thinking. I like the sound of whistles in the woods.

 

[Cedarkerf]

I was practicing being retired today (Bobs advice good advice) was gonna go snap some pics of a skagit tower thats been sitting for past few years still has a nice blue and white paint job but it was gone. So went on a drive about with the camera got some pics to give the thread a bump. I think most trucks runnin thru town end up at the export yard. White river corridor is mostly towers few shovel areas but not many.

 

[MR4WD]

Nope. We had a medium heavy drizzle. Then it changed to an off and on drizzle. I got my fleece top wet through but then dried out and then merely damp. The snow has crept back up the hill. A fine day it was.

I got back from the coast this morning at 1am. During the two weeks I was there we got a bit over 5 feet of rain, 3 feet in 3 days... Even the locals describing the rain would make a bull puncher blush.

Rocked roads became whitewater creeks. Small trickles became waterfalls. Skookumchuck narrows, a narrow part of an ocean inlet which sees 25mph currents 4 times a day from tides saw almost slack water while the tide was coming in. Due to all the raining gathering in the inlet.

After the storm, nothing changed. That place is built for the rain. I'm not though, I'm made of sugar.

 

[MR4WD]

I was practicing being retired today (Bobs advice good advice) was gonna go snap some pics of a skagit tower thats been sitting for past few years still has a nice blue and white paint job but it was gone. So went on a drive about with the camera got some pics to give the thread a bump. I think most trucks runnin thru town end up at the export yard. White river corridor is mostly towers few shovel areas but not many.

I was just working with an old (fresh rebuilt this year) Madill that was 110' tall. Rubber tires. Any idea what model? It looked older than the hills, but ran like a top.

 

[Gologit]

I have a feeling the export market would open up...

A lot of markets would open up. I see so much wasted timber on goverment ground that it makes my teeth hurt. There was a salvage sale on FS ground several years back...mostly pine and fir, a lot of it was big passed over OG...really fine wood. We started the sale late in the season, put some wood on the ground, got a couple of million down the hill, and then got snowed out. There was at least six million decked and the truckers all figured "Great...there's next years hauling, all decked up and ready". Wrong. The next year there were different people in charge and the decks sat. The FS needed all kinds of things from the logger that took time...lots of time. Too much time. AND THE DECKS STILL SAT. In the meantime the logger went broke waiting for permission to start up and we all drifted off to other jobs.

Those logs are still there. I drive through that area every once in awhile and I can see my stumps and one deck that's mostly stuff that I cut. From a distance it looks great, big old punkins all decked up and ready but when you get closer you can see what it really is. It's rotten now, every bit of it...wouldn't even make good chip logs. The FS tried to interest the mills in it but it's famous now among log buyers and they just laugh.

This fall they burned some of the decks. I wish they'd burn them all.

 

[Tzed250]

A lot of markets would open up. I see so much wasted timber on goverment ground that it makes my teeth hurt. There was a salvage sale on FS ground several years back...mostly pine and fir, a lot of it was big passed over OG...really fine wood. We started the sale late in the season, put some wood on the ground, got a couple of million down the hill, and then got snowed out. There was at least six million decked and the truckers all figured "Great...there's next years hauling, all decked up and ready". Wrong. The next year there were different people in charge and the decks sat. The FS needed all kinds of things from the logger that took time...lots of time. Too much time. AND THE DECKS STILL SAT. In the meantime the logger went broke waiting for permission to start up and we all drifted off to other jobs.

Those logs are still there. I drive through that area every once in awhile and I can see my stumps and one deck that's mostly stuff that I cut. From a distance it looks great, big old punkins all decked up and ready but when you get closer you can see what it really is. It's rotten now, every bit of it...wouldn't even make good chip logs. The FS tried to interest the mills in it but it's famous now among log buyers and they just laugh.

This fall they burned some of the decks. I wish they'd burn them all.

That makes me sick...


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[Burvol]

Damn Bob, 6 million is a lot of wood decked up, bet the shoot was 1/4 mile long. Sad thing is, guys like me and you actually cringe at the site of wood being wasted, contrary to the public's general opinion of the logger. It's gross negligance on the people's property-taxpayers.

 

[Gologit]

Damn Bob, 6 million is a lot of wood decked up, bet the shoot was 1/4 mile long. Sad thing is, guys like me and you actually cringe at the site of wood being wasted, contrary to the public's general opinion of the logger. It's gross negligance on the people's property-taxpayers.

Yup we kept on falling, skidding and decking until the snow just got too deep to work....walked the eqiupment out to the main road and called it a season. It was a Cat show. And you're spot on about the waste. Besides wasting the resource itself, which is damn bad enough in and of itself, there were untold hundreds of thousands of dollars that didn't go into anybody's hand. Not the loggers, not the people who depend on the loggers business, not the government, not the schools...everybody got cheated on that one.

I'll quit ranting now. I think everybody that spends any time at all in the woods probably has his own stories about waste and mismanagement. This is just one of them. I wish it was the only one.

 

[GASoline71]

I have been seeing more and more trucks from down where Brian lives... all the way up here in the North Sound haulin' logs from down there to up here. Into the Anacortes sawmill, and Loggin' piers. WTF? How can that be advantageous?

I was rollin' down to help my pops work on his house the other day, and was stuck in traffic at 7pm on I-405 South... Looked to my right and there was one of my buddy's drivin' south with an empty truck... I called him on the cell phone. He was sayin' Anacortes is one of the only saw mills takin' logs up here right now...

WOW... that is a 7 to 8 hour round trip to haul a load of logs... and thats just freeway time.

Gary

 

[056kid]

holy ####.

Them boys must be goin through over 500 dollars of fuel a day!

 

[sawbones]

1959 ad

Garrett skidder co and a couple skidders.
First Garrett skidder made

Dwight Garrett was building machines from army surplus parts after WW2 ended.
there were many proto types of a log moving device but these are the start of mass production. These early versions had axels from 2 1/2 ton GI trucks. Ford truck transmissions and chioce of ford gas 4 cyl or wisconsin aircooled V 4's.




This old beast was Sams log skidder. It is a Wagner built between 55 and 59. These were some of the first rubber tire yarding machines built. This wagner had 2 steering wheels and you could swivel the seat and drive either direction. It had a blade on back to drop and anchor while winching as well as push material. You can see that it has loader type tires because at this time the light weight flotation tire had not been developed yet.. It was in pretty rough shape so it went to the scrap yard along with the cat grader in next pic.

check out the Vannatta bros logging museum. I offered it to them but they have a couple now. they did use my pic though. I dont think they had a twin steer like this one.http://www.vannattabros.com/histlog.html

this was sams IH TD 20 that I bought from his famaily after he passed.. I had asked Sam a few times what he going to do with that old cat and he would tell me, got some property up on the res and got to clear some trees someday.. Sam was 82.

Sam was putting his pants on and heading to work the morning he left us..

 

[sawbones]

 

[sawbones]

 

[sawbones]

 

[slowp]

Unbelievable! I can see a SUNRISE this morning!

Between the fog episodes.:biggrinbounce2:

 

[Cedarkerf]

Yep Slowp I saw it to so it must be real.

Great pics sawbones.

Not the clearest pic but when Grand dad was starting out he built ramps out of logs and pushed em on the truck with his TD9. Back in the day when bunk spikes folded down.

 

[matt9923]

Is a guy from the NE allowed to post here? Not that any of you opinions matter to me