The middle of last week was exciting. Pat and I were down hooking on a Super-sloped Corridor 45degrees+ . A huge limbless log 300 feet up was lost out of the grapple... All we heard was a huge "whoosing" sound, and could see debri flying up the hill directly above us. Pat freaked out, which really freaked me out.. We had to just sit still and determine to which side of us this bullet train was going to go.. At about 50 feet away It looked 10feet to my left, So I bolted to the right as fast as i could... "Whooooosh" it carreened by... I was pretty freaked out, But I guess something like that rarely happens, maybe just once/year... so i was just lucky to see one so soon
Also have to listen for boulders bouncing down the Corridors... Feels like Freaking Donkey-Kong Down there
Off to try another week!
-joe
[ 4 comments ] ( 31 views )
Miranda has been doing great on the delimber, it's real complicated, but she's awefully smart... Myself on the otherhand... after 4 days of working in the coulds at 6000 feet in 40 degree sleet-snow-hail, soggy boots, rotting feet, weak legs on the sloping mountains... I broke... I don't think i can keep doing this... So gotta figure something out.. only guy there without any Skills so i end up doing grunt work all day...
I should really get a video up here of miranda running her machine!
-joe
[ 5 comments ] ( 44 views )
3 out of 7 of the logging crew quit today.. they got drunk last night and made some real bad decisions.
So I'm going to bring Miranda up to camp for Thursday and Friday,
She can have a look at the operation so we can decide whether to stay here the winter working or not!.. Going to see if she's interested in learning to run the Giant complicated De-limber machine!! Whilst i just do dumb brute grunt work hooking.
-Joe
[ 1 comment ] ( 30 views )
Well, I went to work for my Biological Fathers Line logging company last week. it was interesting! The site was about 2 hours from his house, so they have campers setup near the site. So I didn't get to see miranda all week... sounds like she enjoyed some quiet though... Work day is as follows: Get up a little before 6am, Hike up to the work site, and be ready to go prior to there being enough light to "see", the rest of the crew is running around getting their machines ready. Soon as light breaks, My job was to run down the Mountain slope hooking fallen trees into this sky-wire hauling contraption that would haul the logs back out to the road with machinery. Then the "Yarder" would grab the logs while another person "Unhooked" the logs. Then the yarder would place the logs in front of the delimber, which would grab the log, inspect it, cut off all the branches, then cut both ends of the log to the proper size that the Wood Mill wanted. Another Crane behind that would load wood trucks for mill delivery.
Currently the forrest service has a 1Pm limit for working with saws/fuel in the woods, so it was a mad rush to get the logs out of the woods between 6:30am and 1 pm. After words the delimber and crane could continue working.
It was fun work, awesome sunrise every morning, and great mountaintop views..
We were at 6000 feet. trying to decide whether to do it another week.. or more... .
The whole Line logging biz is neat also. It is not nearly as scarring as normal Clear cut logging, and These guys try to leave plenty of good "seeding" trees behind so that everything can regrow. for the most part it looks pretty sustainable, and pretty slick.
-Joe
[ add comment ]
Today we went on a boat ride in Flathead Lake with Pat and his wife Nancy. We stopped at Wild Horse Island. It is a state park and there are actually wild horses on it, though we didn't see any. We did see Mule Deer and Big Horn Sheep though. We hiked to, probably, the highest point on the island. Joe did this all barefoot becuase he didn't bring his shoes on the boat...
On the way back to the dock Nancy and Pat did a little fishing. Nancy caught a good sized fish, but let it go. Then Joe went water-skiing all the way back to the dock.
-Miranda
Osprey we saw near the boat launch.
Big Horn Sheep
[ 1 comment ]
Back Next
Calendar