Mt St Helen salvage logging?

[jeremym]

Anyone have any pictures, videos, stories about the salvage logging done after the 1980 Mt St Helens eruption? I have searched around the internet and found a couple pictures, but not much. I emailed a guy from Weyerhaeuser that I thought might have some info, but he must have changed his email or retired. I did find some videos for sale here,
http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=297 1
but there wasn't much info available about them so I havent taken the plunge and ordered them. Anyone have anything to share? I saw a little action when we used to go up by windy ridge during the mid 80's (?) but I was pretty young then. Also when I was in high school I hung around a logging/trucking outfit near Amboy and heard alot of stories from them.
Thanks

 

[tomtrees58]

i have it its to short not to good tom trees:newbie:

 

[jeremym]

I see there are two of them, and they are only $7.49 each. I guess I should just spring for them, it's better than what I have now ... nothing

 

[slowp]

Are you doing a project or something? I could PM you the name of a logger or two who worked in it. I just worked in it after the logging was done.

 

[jeremym]

Nope just curious. I would appreciate any info you have slowp. Love your pictures and stories BTW. Been on the site a while, but this is my first post. I am on the other side of the mt from you.

Also as way of introduction, I'm from SW Washington on the south side Mt St Helens. Always been fascinated with logging and heavy equipment. I worked for a logging company for a little while when I got out of high school helping out in the shop, welding, and doing night watchmen duty. Later I got into the electronics industry and did alot of work installing radios, cb's, cell phone's etc in logging equipment around the area. Still do that, but mostly for the police and fire folks now, except for some side work for an excavation company.

 

[slowp]

I heard it was a crazy time. Big yarders and logtrucks all sharing the same road. I have heard there were at least two logging deaths. The cutters had to pack extra chains because of the ash--which we found some stashes of while burning the units afterwards. When I got here, the roads through the blast area were paved and in good shape, and there still was a log of logging traffic mixed in with all the tourist traffic. This made for interesting exclamations on the CB. They'd be moving in a yarder, and these were the big yarders, and the pilot car guy would come on the radio saying that the tourist had gone right past him, then we'd hear the lowboy driver cuss. The switchbacks had no room for two way traffic when the yarders were going on them.

I was with an engine mopping up after a burn, and we'd use up the water and then go to a roadside creek for a fill up. Tourists would stop and actually ask what happened. We were tempted to tell them it was all Weyco land, or that there'd been a nuclear accident.

There was no shade. I developed two wrinkles on my nose that never went away. The sun off the ash was bright so we started wearing sunscreen. One guy used a post-it on his nose to protect it from the sun.

We spent one 30 hour shift burning a line around one 600 acre unit that was to be lit by helicopter later. Then a few days later, put in another all day and nighter on it. The helicopter started lighting it, then, when the steepest part of the unit was coming up, the helicopter broke down and it had to be lit by people carrying torches. There was a lot of rolling debris and one woman got hit in the back by a rock pretty hard, but only got bruised badly. The rootwads were deadly. You usually work from the top down when lighting so are in the path of all of that. At dawn, one of the guys was packing his saw up the line singing some pretty mournful tunes. But one of the guys who didn't burn brought us out pastries first thing and coffee. That was nice.

I have a few pictures but they are packed away. I'll find them after I move.
We all look so young in them! And skinny. :blush:

 

[rngrchad]

I heard it was a crazy time. Big yarders and logtrucks all sharing the same road. I have heard there were at least two logging deaths. The cutters had to pack extra chains because of the ash--which we found some stashes of while burning the units afterwards. When I got here, the roads through the blast area were paved and in good shape, and there still was a log of logging traffic mixed in with all the tourist traffic. This made for interesting exclamations on the CB. They'd be moving in a yarder, and these were the big yarders, and the pilot car guy would come on the radio saying that the tourist had gone right past him, then we'd hear the lowboy driver cuss. The switchbacks had no room for two way traffic when the yarders were going on them.

I was with an engine mopping up after a burn, and we'd use up the water and then go to a roadside creek for a fill up. Tourists would stop and actually ask what happened. We were tempted to tell them it was all Weyco land, or that there'd been a nuclear accident.

There was no shade. I developed two wrinkles on my nose that never went away. The sun off the ash was bright so we started wearing sunscreen. One guy used a post-it on his nose to protect it from the sun.

We spent one 30 hour shift burning a line around one 600 acre unit that was to be lit by helicopter later. Then a few days later, put in another all day and nighter on it. The helicopter started lighting it, then, when the steepest part of the unit was coming up, the helicopter broke down and it had to be lit by people carrying torches. There was a lot of rolling debris and one woman got hit in the back by a rock pretty hard, but only got bruised badly. The rootwads were deadly. You usually work from the top down when lighting so are in the path of all of that. At dawn, one of the guys was packing his saw up the line singing some pretty mournful tunes. But one of the guys who didn't burn brought us out pastries first thing and coffee. That was nice.

I have a few pictures but they are packed away. I'll find them after I move.
We all look so young in them! And skinny. :blush:

Slowp, that whole scene your describing sounds crazy. Nice descriptions, felt like I was almost there. Good post!

 

[jeremym]

Fun stuff! I used to see some of the big slash burns when me and my dad used to get firewood permits up in gifford pinchot or the st helens tree farm. These days I get to go on some of the wildfires and set up comms to support the crews. I would definitely like to see some of the pics you have! Here is one I have from a fire a few years ago by Cle Elum, WA. It blew up while we were up setting up a repeater for the fire crews on a nearby hill.

 

[slowp]

One time I was down in what is called The Mineral Block, which is a checkerboard (mixed) ownership west of Morton. It was June and there were several mushroom clouds from the slash burns that were going on. We always strived to "get the column built" so the smoke would go high and not smoke us out. We were not always successful. But the fire guy in charge would try to keep us timber people happy and smoke free so we'd come back to help when he needed us.

 

[joesawer]

For the past 5 years or so I have worked off and on with a faller who worked there as a faller. He said it was big old growth, blow down and crazy dangerous and fun.

 

[wilbilt]

I worked with a guy about 10 years ago who had been in the area during and after the eruption. He was not a logger, but worked in a shop that maintained county and emergency vehicles.

He told me that the ash was everywhere, and they had to improvise ways to keep the vehicles running. They built intake systems using flexible ducting and industrial air filters mounted on the roofs of vehicles to reduce the amount of ash being sucked into the engines. It was thick on the roads and was constantly being kicked up by vehicles.

They used lots of duct tape to seal openings and try to keep the ash out of the inside of the vehicles, because it made it difficult to breathe. Windshield wipers and windshields were destroyed due to the abrasive qualities of the ash.

It sounds like it was a crazy time, with everyone running in survival mode. He told me when the explosion initially happened, the sky turned black as the ash cloud approached. Some of his older family members, who were devout Catholics, were convinced it was the end of the world.

 

[hammerlogging]

i was about 4 and living near Seattle, not much ash west of the mountain, but still some. When we got some ash on playground slide, I remember my sister and I running out thinking it'd be like snow. Not like snow.

I remember my Dad having to wear dust masks some days for work (RR)

 

[slowp]

I was trapped in a much too small mobile home with my parents. I'd gone there to help with stuff on the weekend. We saw the black sky coming and couldn't figure it out. The news didn't have anything about it on till it hit Spokane. After we figured out that it was ash from somewhere, my dad came up with the idea of putting out a sheet to see if we could catch some ash.
Well, that was not a problem. The roads were closed. I spent one more night, and then couldn't take it anymore, soaked my little Datsun's air filter in oil, put a nylon over it, and took off over the little known backroads. I was living in the Methow Valley and not much ash made it there. Afterwards, the Datsun ate a quart of oil every 120 miles. I had to save up some money and then traded it in. I still have my little jar of the ash that I scraped off the pickup.

 

[John Ellison]

My parents had been visiting my brother who lives a little east of Seattle. They were leaving back to Indiana the morning it erupted. Not knowing what was going on, just that the sky had started to look a little funny. Somewhere east of the mountains the ash caught up with them. They had to make a detour a good ways up into Canada before coming back down into the U.S. and on to Indiana.

 

[B-Edwards]

I was looking at a book today I purchased at the visiters center about 11 years ago, my wife and I got married in Tahoe and rented a car and wound up at St Helens. We spent the night before on Hood ( might not have done that if we had seen St Helens first). I love it out there, it is beautiful!!!! I remember driving up and the toutle river was to our right and seeing the huge trees that were in that mud the river had cut through. I saw picture two years ago that afriend had taken and I couldnt believe how much the lava dome had grown. I hope to go back this spring. Funny I was thinking about this today and here you guys go and get me worked up. I'll be bacckkk!

 

[eguinn]

I was living in Granite Falls, Wa. when she went off. As you people who live up in that part of the world know Granite is about 200 miles north of St Helens. At 8:30 am we heard & felt the explosion go off, at about 10:30 am our water shut off. We called a guy to come look at the well to see what was going on. He got to our place a couple hours later & started looking to see what was wrong, came back to the house & said your pump motor is burned out, it`s full of sand. Now mind you our well was 120 ft. deep with a submersible pump & motor. What caused our pump motor to burn out was that when she blew, the concussion from the explosion was so strong that it shook sand down in around the pump motor & burned the motor up. Don`t mess with mother nature.

 

[jeremym]

I enjoy living close by the mt. I have summited the mt once and done some overnight trips on the east, north, and south sides. The one thing I haven't gotten to see is the logging equipment by coldwater lake that got blasted. Maybe this summer!

 

[Metals406]

I was 2 when it blew... But I remember going outside and thinking the ash was snow... We had an inch or two... And that's in NW Montana!

 

[Humptulips]

I never did any logging around ST Helens after the blast. I did do some in the Mineral block about 10 years after. The butts of the trees were still loaded with ash. You just about had to debark a tree to get a notch in and even then I spent a lot of time working on the chain.
When it happened I was working north of Aberdeen. We all thought man, we'll never get any of that ash but due to some freak winds I woke one morning to a yellowish dawn full of ash. The little we got made the rigging hell. Every turn created a cloud of ash. The company bought us some of those masks but I couldn't suck in enough air with it on. The only thing that helped was rain.

 

[slowp]

I forgot about the ash in the trees. Around here, the fallers had somebody else go ahead with a sharp axe and chop the bark off the trees before they cut them down. Or they did it themselves. It helped a little with keeping their chain sharp. Even now, you'll see ash poof when a big tree is dropped. There's clumps of it in the mistletoe brooms and on the limbs still.

When I worked in the Mineral Block, My old pickup was replaced with a brand new one. The rig came with street tires on it. I had to use it that way. The roads were rocked with sharp pointy rock. Everytime I went there, I had a flat. There were a hundred loads a day coming out of there, so lots of yarders set up. If my flat was close enough to a landing, somebody on a crew would come running up out of the brush to change it. I never asked for help either, they just showed up and took over. Other times, I changed it. I finally got tired of flat tires and started driving on the flat until it was past fixing and got a set of heavy duty tires that way. Not a good thing to do, but seemed to be the only way.

I haven't ventured that way since my return from exile. I used to know my way around in the maze of roads. The private companies were constantly punching new roads in, so we drew them in on our maps by hand. One guy had hung flags all over that only he seemed to be able to follow. If you were on a main haul road, you had to change channels on the CB several times. It was crazy. That's where I really learned how to react quickly when meeting a truck. There'd always be a couple who weren't on the right channel or had a broken radio. And it took a while to learn where such spots as Crewbus Corner were. That was one of the locations called out on the radio.