Log removal from "mountain"

[Timberjackboy]

Frig man Hire a helecopter, along here they are flying back and fourth all day long patrolling the border, if ya see one flying by flag it down boys. They will be gald to help ya i bet. Try danceing around in camo and waving a toy gun if that don't work, im sur ethey will stop.

 

[onionman]

thanks all,
The chopper Does give me an ideal. think I will run up some ballons , this hill top is on the filght path for training piolts in some of the big old prop cargo planes in ground hugging radar. Maybe they will snag a few and drag them on down for me!
leaving out at 5 in the morning, chips should be flying by noon....
later
Onion

 

[Pacific]

What do you plan on doing with wood that small ???

Thats not even worth cutting or in this area it would be a big waste of time.

As said its hard to tell what your dealing with without pictures or physically being there. You have to try get some pictures so we can see I can't picture a 70% slope. I know what steep is because here on the West Coast of B.C. we have some of the steepest conditions to work on.

With wood that small you probably could cut the logs into the short lengths and have a army of students from your local highschools working for minimum wage they can pack all your logs down the hill

I don't know what I can suggest that would be cost effective because wood that small has no timber value at all. For the effort put into hauling the wood down the hill may cost you way more than its worth. I know the local bandsaw mills won't even look at wood that small.

 

[John Ellison]

I have seen vertical log buildings in the interior of B.C. that were made from smaller logs than what he is planning on using.

John

 

[MasterBlaster]

Maybe this?

 

[Newfie]

What do you plan on doing with wood that small ???

Thats not even worth cutting or in this area it would be a big waste of time.

I don't know what I can suggest that would be cost effective because wood that small has no timber value at all. For the effort put into hauling the wood down the hill may cost you way more than its worth. I know the local bandsaw mills won't even look at wood that small.

DUDE, there is a logging world outside of BC that is much different than yours. Your situation is the exception rather than the norm,deal with that fact and move on.
The rest of us don't hoe-chuck all but trailer length logs into piles and burn them. We send them to commercial mills and they get turned into millions of board feet of lumber.

 

[onionman]

The reason I can get this cedar is that it was to hard to get to for the past 120 years... will be using it to build a pur da piece style og log cabin.
Wish I could get some of the large westen cedar.. but thats not to be.
The cedar trees we have in east tn. just normally don't get that big.I have a few that will go 28 " dbh but most have so many splits/damage that are not of use.
managed to get a few cut and down to the stacking area with out any excitment.
Then went to start and stack them and managed to tear of the hitch to the 4 wheeler and break the winch off the arch I made..( all on level ground)
Time to break out the welder
ONion

 

[Pacific]

I have been thinking about your situation is there any way of getting a trailer up the hill something like a tandem axle boat trailer ?

You slap some sort of bunks on the trailer so it will hold the logs then put maybe 2 ton of wood on it then lower it down the hill with a winch or some kind of tractor. If you have a fairly good path down the hill you can skid all the logs to the side of it then load up the trailer and take it down the hill.

If you can get a vehical up the slope something like a old 4x4 3/4 ton put a A frame arch on the back and use the truck as a skidder you can skid the wood down the hill.

This is what you need www.threelakestruck.com/Images/Log/75Iron Mule.jpg

 

[onionman]

thanks for the link.
should be meeting a guy with a dozer in a week or so to see about a few "roads"
Onion

 

[bwalker]

Pacific, While Iron Mules are great machines steep ground isnt their forte'.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Ever seen this:

http://www.tiltonequipment.com/Jonsered/Tilton_Jonsered_iron_horse_lpage.html

 

[Pacific]

Forwarders are not really used much here on the coast but they are in the interior of B.C. .

I was thinking if Onion cold decked his wood he could have a contractor with a forwarder to come in and haul it down the hill. I can see that Iron Mule being tippy its tires are pretty narrow and it looks top heavy.

 

[Newfie]

That iron horse thing from jonsered goes for over $10k. For that he could get a used cable skidder.

 

[onionman]

That looks interesting
Onion

 

[canguy21]

Alberta Forestry used the Iron Horse on fire lines to haul supplies and water. Slung them in by chopper. Apparently they gave up the idea after they lost too many when the fire turned.
High lead and balloon logging are used on the B.C. coast but like Pacific says they are dealing with much tougher terrain and big timber. There really is little market there for 8" to 10" logs except for pulp, firewood and fence posts. This is not too diss anyone. You work with what you have available. Good luck on yer Abe Lincoln home!!

 

[John Ellison]

If there is anywhere at the top or back end of the property that you can see the road then you could staple them out. Basically you would have wire rope that would be choked in a tree at the top (guyed) and then go to the bottom, thru a block and then to your truck or? Might need another piece of line and another block to get a good tightline. This is your skyline. Did I mention you need two people? Anyway the donkey puncher/ truck driver slacks the skyline down and the hooker at the top end gets the line over a log and drives a large staple over the line and into the end of the log. He then runs for his life while giving the signal to go ahead on er. The D.P. gets a good tightline and the log flies down the skyline untill it hits a cable clamp and comes off. If you have enough deflection and lift this would work slick. Would also be a good way to get hurt if your not careful. Its a poor mans reverse shotgun carridge.

John

 

[onionman]

John,
What kind of staple? where would I buy them? This is what I was thinking of doing with a pulley and a chocker. Any ideal on what size/type cable I would need to use?
Onion

 

[John Ellison]

Onion
We would still need more specifics on your land. If you did have a road built, would it have any other future use? Are most of your logs at the top, middle or lower. Can you easily bunch most of them to several different locations? Are there any places at the top where you can see the lower part without a lot of trees and limbs being in the way? Am still not sure how steep it really is. If you had a line twenty feet high in a large tree at the top and then straight away to the base of a large tree at the bottom, would the line be at a 45deg. angle or? How far off the ground would the line be in the middle? This is very important. Also how big are your largest logs again? This is fast and cheap but will only work under certain conditions.

John

 

[IndyIan]

Onion,
I did a little white cedar logging at my place on a steep slope. Not nearly as long as yours but still steep enough to be challanging with the atv and some parts way too steep for anything but me. For stuff as small as your talking I would just put a chain around them and drag them myself to the atv. Downhill it was pretty easy. Now I can't see doing this for each log down your whole hill but if you can get some access points that are atv accessible it might work. Also cut around there first, you might get all you need sooner than you think.

It was pretty hard to cut selectively as well since cedar here grow very densely so I cut small patches with trails to some of the trees I specifically wanted. Its good practice for your directional felling too since hitting that 4' gap 50' out would save alot of effort dealing with a hung tree. I have a good cache of fence posts now too!

Once on flat ground we just manhandled most logs into a trailer, some bigger ones we used a couple pullies to drag them up. Not easy but cheap! We looked into getting a guy to skid them but it wasn't going to be worth it for a a few thousand board feet. I do like the staple skidding idea too, would be neat to see.

Ian

 

[onionman]

The staple concept is good.The first small log went down like a rocket. got brave and tried a large one and then problems started. I broke chain,pulleys and at last the cable trying to get enough tension on the cable to get the log to slide !
The concept works well but I think the quality of the staples was poor ( metal to soft)
the cable cut thru one staple (5/16 shank dia.) after only 20 ' of slide ! The rest of the stuff I used is holding up not guess I broke all of the weak links. Will try again in a couple of weeks , may try and get some photos once I get the bugs worked out.
thanks every one
Onion