Notching Tree's

[Tree Sling'r]

My son and I cut a strip for Ericson on the west branch. We came in from Stirling City on the P line. Waded the river every morning at the bridge, and then a 45 minute hike up the river to the strip. Took us 2 weeks to cut it. If you got anything in the river, you got 3 days in the electric chair. Nice big wood. Later Dennis

Sounds familiar - were you working for Scott Valley Fallers, or someone else?

 

[Mr.]

If you have a forward leaner it will extinguish the risk of barber chairing.

Also like on the recent side lean video, had I have bored the back cut and cut thru to the back of the tree it wouldn't have pinched the bar ... the smarty who suggested that won a hat.

Some people do it all the time, they are comfortable with it, try a few and see how you feel about them ... but make sure the bar is long enough.

When you are cutting $9/board ft veneer..... bore cuts arepretty handy. Don't want it to split your stump.

Then again I work behind a desk for a living.

Fred

 

[Doctor Dave]

snip

Dr. Dave...

You've got some good insight.

You'd be amazed how much hazard fuel reduction the Wenatchee River RD does here. In the 2 1/2 seasons I worked here, we got perhaps 5000 acres treated. It seems that funding can be out there for these projects. Part of the units we worked got mechanically logged to thin out the larger trees, then FS crews came in and thinned and hand piled the small diameter stuff, and after fall pile burning, very nice, open ponderosa stands were left with +/- 16 foot stem spacing. Of course, the timber sale helps fund the project, and they'd try to make the units large enough to equal things out a bit, so that in the areas that had lots of large trees would help pay for treating the areas of doghair thick grand fir reprod. But, they have both the city of Wenatchee and the Microsoft cabins up around Lake Wenatchee, thus they have a good number of people for what they try to do. Still, EVERY SINGLE PROJECT has lawsuits and protests against it.

snip

I used to live in Seattle and went to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie and Wenatchee NFs often to hike and backpack. The east-side forests obviously need thinning, whether by mechanical thinning, prescribed fire, or both. Do nothing and that means wildfire (which would probably burn too hot) and bark beetles do the thinning for you. I don't know about now, but back in the mid '90s some proposed actions were pretty much acceptable to everyone, and some weren't. I also volunteered with an outdoor club to help write comments on their behalf while a student in forestry school. For example, the big Icicle Creek Fire salvage was an issue---we didn't support going into the roadless backcountry, and the FS wanted to; I believe the final plan was helicopter logging some if the best fire-killed and "about to die" trees from the roadless area (no ecological restoration goal---just dollar value). Perfectly sound scientific (and often economic) arguments can be made for not salvage logging big trees from backcountry burns, but political expediency says that this will continue for some time, whatever political party is in power.

 

[Gologit]

Perfectly sound scientific (and often economic) arguments can be made for not salvage logging big trees from backcountry burns, but political expediency says that this will continue for some time, whatever political party is in power.

The scientific and economic arguments are only valid if you believe them already and use them to further your own agenda. What do you see as an alternative to burn salvage? Letting perfectly good timber rot when we have the technology available to log it in an environmentally friendly manner is the epitome of waste. Sure,I'm biased....I'm a logger and part of my income might come from burn salvage in some years. But thats beside the point. Wasting a valuable resource simply because some of the more radical enviro groups find logging offensive is just plain ridiculous. Judging by your posts and the way you express yourself you're certainly not a stupid man...just very poorly informed. I admire your idealism. I just wish it was better grounded in fact and logic. And boy are we off topic/thread etc now ! Sorry Talon...back to the tree notchers.

 

[talon1189]

And boy are we off topic/thread etc now ! Sorry Talon...back to the tree notchers.

Daaayum.........What happened to my thread?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Talon

 

[Dennis Cahoon]

Sounds familiar - were you working for Scott Valley Fallers, or someone else?

No, Sea Forest. I know where you were cutting. I've cut up that way too. Flee Valley and Rag Dump. Where I was talking about was down at the bottom on the west branch, half way between Scooters(Jarbo Gap) and Stirling City. We also cut the burn on the other side of the hiway at Scooters for Columbia.

 

[Doctor Dave]

The scientific and economic arguments are only valid if you believe them already and use them to further your own agenda. What do you see as an alternative to burn salvage? Letting perfectly good timber rot when we have the technology available to log it in an environmentally friendly manner is the epitome of waste. Sure,I'm biased....I'm a logger and part of my income might come from burn salvage in some years. But thats beside the point. Wasting a valuable resource simply because some of the more radical enviro groups find logging offensive is just plain ridiculous. Judging by your posts and the way you express yourself you're certainly not a stupid man...just very poorly informed. I admire your idealism. I just wish it was better grounded in fact and logic. And boy are we off topic/thread etc now ! Sorry Talon...back to the tree notchers.

I've tried to be as objective as possible. "wasting a valuable resource simply because some of the more radical enviro groups find logging offensive" is not really the reason it is not done.

Scientific research over the last 25 years supports leaving big deadwood in the woods for a host of reasons: storing water in the gradually rotting wood during the summer drought, wildlife habitat, moderating the microclimate for seedlings (shade and moisture), as well as habitat for everything from flying squirrels and voles (spotted owl food) to salmanders and carpenter ants. The ants are a favorite food for large woodpeckers (flickers and piliated) which also eat pests like spruce budworm and tussock moth caterpillars. Even bears eat ants. Lately, there is a lot of emphasis in understanding the forest carbon cycle as it relates to global warming; that big deadwood has a lot of carbon, and it rots very slowly.

Aside from all these vallues that are hard to put a dollar amount on (although there is a growing movement in the direction of carbon credits---industries buying forest in the tropics to preserve it, so tha they can merrily go on buring fossil fuels), there is a value to the taxpayer in not doing some salvgae sales, because they are below cost.

Short answer--it ain't wasted just because it rots. The big wood is mainly on the public lands partlly through accident---the more accessable lands were cut over before the NF and BLM were established---and because of the change in management that accelerated with the spotted owl plan (1993). It's not like the owl was the beginning of the argument for preserving old-growth and roadless backcountry as wilderness (there has been a public clamor for that for more than 100 years). What happened was a lot of the basic forest science---not just science on how to grow commercial species of trees, but the workings of the whole ecosystem---was brought together. More has been learned since then--like moist conifer forests are still net sinks of carbon at 500 years of age, kind of an important thing for global warming research and how forests figure in to it.

OK. I like working with wood, and would like to see some of that beautiful clear, close grained wood in a big old fire-killed larch, ponderosa pine, or Doug fir used as well. What it is, is a societal (political) decision; how much old-growth (almost all on the public lands) should be retained for all kinds of benefits unique to it, and in addition to timber value? Recreation, wildlife habitat, preserves of biodiversity and ecological processes for scientific study, the best source of clean waterm salmon habitat, etc. You could also ask, how much of the forest structure you see in old-growth should be re-introduced onto acreage managed for timber?

Have you heard of the Collins Pine Co. in CA? They manage their lands to retain much of the characteristics of the old virgin pine stands. Why? They see it as good management--a continuous supply of high quality logs. I have to think that the owners just have a preference for doing things that way, because its much more conservative than the required state forest practice regs.

Yea, I did highjack the thread. You might browse through the scientific report part of the Spotted Owl Plan. Lot of interesting info. there.

While I haven't logged, I've done my share of "Urban logging" clearing forest for suburbia around Portland years ago. Currently, I'm a tree health/hazard consultant, and I climb and prune. I even drop a good sized pine or fir now and then. I have some prototype projects I'm doing for people with a few forested acres that want to reduce fire danger, and maintain wildlife habitat, native forest/meadow, and mountain views. It's a hell of a lot of work (but I like it). I've been photodocumenting "before" and "after", and hope to sell my idea to dozens of new clients over the winter and really get into production, but using a tree service to handle the brush and slash.

 

[Dennis Cahoon]

Have you heard of the Collins Pine Co. in CA? They manage their lands to retain much of the characteristics of the old virgin pine stands. Why? They see it as good management--a continuous supply of high quality logs. I have to think that the owners just have a preference for doing things that way, because its much more conservative than the required state forest practice regs.


There from Chester, CA....They do have a very good sustain yield managed forest, but managing their lands to retain much of the characteristics of the old virgin pine stands is a laugh. Obviously you've just read about there managing, I worked for them for 6 years.

 

[Gologit]

Have you heard of the Collins Pine Co. in CA? They manage their lands to retain much of the characteristics of the old virgin pine stands. Why? They see it as good management--a continuous supply of high quality logs. I have to think that the owners just have a preference for doing things that way, because its much more conservative than the required state forest practice regs.


There from Chester, CA....They do have a very good sustain yield managed forest, but managing their lands to retain much of the characteristics of the old virgin pine stands is a laugh. Obviously you've just read about there managing, I worked for them for 6 years.

Yup! I think Dr. Dave is well intentioned but he really needs to get his head out of the books and his body into the woods. Theres a lot more going on out there than you'll find in some article written by a person who depended on other people for his information. Studies and surveys are fine but you can't substitute them for common sense and pure plain logic. I wonder if Dr. Dave is a member of the Sierra Club or Earth First. I hope not because if he is he instantly loses any credibility with me...and probably most other people.