Topping trees for supports

[wowzers]

Looks flat as a pancake. You guys keep mentioning topping your tail trees. Are you using them as a spar and not tying to the base of the tree?

 

[slowp]

Looks flat as a pancake. You guys keep mentioning topping your tail trees. Are you using them as a spar and not tying to the base of the tree?

To the flatness: Yes it was. A federal judge did the logging systems designs which were No Ground Based To Be Used. That's why supports were needed. The units had old skid trails which could have been reused. Oh, then another sale went in next to this one. Some of the units shared the same boundaries. On the later sale, skidders could be used.

Tail trees: I guess you could call them a spar. The skyline is run through a block up in the tree, and tied off on a stump.

 

[Humptulips]

Looks flat as a pancake. You guys keep mentioning topping your tail trees. Are you using them as a spar and not tying to the base of the tree?

Around here a "support tree" is like the ones slowp pictured. The carriage runs over a jack.
A tail tree is just a tree that has a block hung in it for lift ahead of the tree. It may or may not have guylines. Tail trees are usually the term used when used with a skyline. Lift trees is usually what is usually refered to when used on a high lead show.
A tail hold is the tree or stump or deadman that the skyline is attached to.

I really don't see the need to top most support trees. Reasons for topping a tree are safety if there is a crew working under it or to keep it standing. Once the guylines are in it I'm not sure why it would be less stable with the top in it.
On tail trees where you only guy behind the tree I have seen it where dumping the skyline would put a terrific whip backwards in the tree and if it was poorly rooted would creat a problem.
I went up and topped a few after the tree was rigged because this became apparent after the tree was rigged. That can be a little ticklish.

 

[Humptulips]

To the flatness: Yes it was. A federal judge did the logging systems designs which were No Ground Based To Be Used. That's why supports were needed. The units had old skid trails which could have been reused. Oh, then another sale went in next to this one. Some of the units shared the same boundaries. On the later sale, skidders could be used.

Tail trees: I guess you could call them a spar. The skyline is run through a block up in the tree, and tied off on a stump.

Around here they had used cats in the earlier days on the FS ground. There was backlash from the muddy cat roads left behind. For years after you could not take any equipment off the road without special permission. Even parking something off the gravel would get you in trouble.
Lately I see they are using ground based equipment for commercial thinning.

 

[slowp]

Jack (intermediate support) for a Maki Carriage. I do not think they topped the tree.

View attachment 237347

 

[slowp]

Rigging on a tail tree.

View attachment 237348

 

[wowzers]

Gotcha. When I worked on a 98 we would tie directly to the stump in most cases, or wrap one and tie back to another. On this yarder we have a bunch of straps, blocks, and twisters tied off to many trees for the tail hold. Never had a lift block by the tail hold. Mostly hung them at blind leads for deflection. I guess it acomplishes the same thing just in a different way.

 

[Humptulips]

Gotcha. When I worked on a 98 we would tie directly to the stump in most cases, or wrap one and tie back to another. On this yarder we have a bunch of straps, blocks, and twisters tied off to many trees for the tail hold. Never had a lift block by the tail hold. Mostly hung them at blind leads for deflection. I guess it acomplishes the same thing just in a different way.

Sounds like you are dealing with poorly rooted trees. I feel for you. Makes a lot of extra work.

 

[wowzers]

Mostly just nothing really great to tie too, coupled with pretty big wood.

 

[tramp bushler]

Rigging on a tail tree.

View attachment 237348

I just noticed the hook tender didn't use a lift chocker , ie cat chocker but rather a regular strap ..
We ALWAYS had to use chockers . Makes it alot easier to strip the tree . Pull the Molly and pin to open the block . Put the pin thru the goose neck and line gaurd. Grab the chocker and lift it up for slack .un bell the chocker , find a soft spot and toss the whole thing out . The lift chocker helps find the block when you get down out of the tree . But then in Southeast the ground is full of holes . .

 

[wowzers]

We call them lift block chokers. Its a big swedege chocker with a whole bunch of buttons pressed on so you can get it tight on various sized trees.

 

[slowp]

I just noticed the hook tender didn't use a lift chocker , ie cat chocker but rather a regular strap ..
We ALWAYS had to use chockers . Makes it alot easier to strip the tree . Pull the Molly and pin to open the block . Put the pin thru the goose neck and line gaurd. Grab the chocker and lift it up for slack .un bell the chocker , find a soft spot and toss the whole thing out . The lift chocker helps find the block when you get down out of the tree . But then in Southeast the ground is full of holes . .

I'm not sure what stage of setup that tree was in. I think that was on a unit where it was 2 guys logging.
The son was the faller, hooktender, and chokersetter and the dad was the yarder engineer. loader operator, and chaser.
They didn't always do like other loggers do. The son packed an aluminum ladder up from the road on the bottom to use to rig trees. They started the job with an ancient gas powered Skagit yarder, then came upon a larger, later model diesel swing yarder.

"Dad" didn't want to buy more haywire so they pulled the skyline down the hill. The son would be cussing and the dad would talk about it being good enough in the old days...I felt sorry and helped once. Then I think they started waiting till I showed up and would have me either down the hill pulling or up on the landing watching for kinks. That line is HEAVY!

On the last day, I wanted them to finish. They'd spent a lonnnnnnng time on that unit. So, I unhooked chokers. It was a happy time when the last tree came up the hill. I also learned that you should hang onto the choker and not let it fly off. I only knocked my hardhat off, I didn't lose any teeth.

 

[Humptulips]

I just noticed the hook tender didn't use a lift chocker , ie cat chocker but rather a regular strap ..
We ALWAYS had to use chockers . Makes it alot easier to strip the tree . Pull the Molly and pin to open the block . Put the pin thru the goose neck and line gaurd. Grab the chocker and lift it up for slack .un bell the chocker , find a soft spot and toss the whole thing out . The lift chocker helps find the block when you get down out of the tree . But then in Southeast the ground is full of holes . .

You made me put my glasses on and look. I'm thinking L&I wouldn't like that if they saw it. I noticed that the strap is one of those with the double ferule pressed eyes. Bet that would be a bugger to unthread the eyes up in a tree once that eye pulls down.

 

[slowp]

I did a common sense thing for derigging. Since contractors are paid to come in after logging and dump trees on the ground--for "down, woody debris" I marked the tail trees so they could be cut. After use, they could cut them down and then derig them.

 

[tramp bushler]

I've see good blocks get ruined by the hook falling the lift tree. Don't want to cast no aspersions . But they are obvious . As I made the mistake ( perhaps) of telling the hooktender that I could climb when he asked . I ended up doin alot of pimping . Sad comentary on pully packers when a chocker dog is a better climber than they are.

Wowzer . The way to get a lift chocker to stay in place is to wrap the tree . Once the weight of the lift block and haywire are on it it will stay in place .
Funny how some hooktenders would trade jobs with me when I was pullin riggin and in good loggin ( no hang ups to go fight) and they had a funky tree to rig .

 

[Humptulips]

Fell a lot of tail trees with blocks in them. Never damaged a block. We used to always derig them for fear of damaging a block if the tree was going to be fell. I stopped doing it when we started seeing nothing but second growth trees. Might be a problem on bigger trees.

On tree chokers slipping down the tree. I liked to leave a limb to hang my strap above if I could. Occasionally I could not do that. I would stick my axe in the back side and use that to keep the strap up. Once the block is on the strap it won't slip.
Yea, I used to wrap the trees when I had to but if that is an every day thing your straps are too long.
I never really had a pimp. A few times I had to have help but not often.

Rigging a lot of trees? A good double bit axe and a good pass rope are musts. I had a synthetic pass rope. I believe it was crab line. Liked it a lot.

 

[tramp bushler]

This was with nice boom stick spruce . 4 log timber .