So I gotta ask....

[Westboastfaller]

What is this about avoiding uphill falling?

"I'll take West Coast Timber Falling for 1000 please Alex"
Q)Faller jacks a 200ft tree off has falling face 180° off the lean down the steep hill

A) "What is: this about avoiding up hill falling"?

Well done and that moves you into the lead

Final jeopardy coming right up!


I will follow suite ..like I said, questions are a good thing.

Coffee break



​

 

[bnmc98]

I thought the BC Faller training videos I watched a long time ago told people not to fall uphill more than 15 degrees as a rule.
I fall uphill if I need to but I do believe the people who are training people frown on it.

 

[Westboastfaller]

I thought the BC Faller training videos I watched a long time ago told people not to fall uphill more than 15 degrees as a rule.
I fall uphill if I need to but I do believe the people who are training people frown on it.

Wow I'm impressed. Not to many certified fallers would know that. Had a Certified Faller Supervisor Do a full 23 page evaluation on the hill with me my first day with a company.
It is the same one they use for a certificate or what they used when they had recerts a while ago.
Not 50 questions but about 20 on an I-pad program. He asked me and I said, no more than 15° and he agrees and put in the answer. Next shift I'm doing a double up with another faller and he sits us down and does another evaluation together but mainly just the questions and 5 pic of our stumps each. Well the other faller didn't have a clue or really comprehend the question at first. I answer 15° then they start to discuss it and the supervisor said "15° or 11° or what ever it is"...lol
He didn't even know for sure.
I℅ to 2℅ of Cedar possible grows uphill into your falling face. Sometimes you deal with more.
If I can I try to gouge into the face and deal with it when it's time. If not I have to split the face and work one side for a while bad day when you have 3 of them in a day on a side lay.

We have the rules but it doesn't mean we can't Fall up the hill when needed. We just can't as a practice just like I said about stumps with no steps. It's an acceptable stump under work safe BC (WCB) but the BC forest saftey council have some different rules and the Supervisor's have to play their game. I however read all the 'loopholes' in our occupational help and saftey (OH&S) regulations witch is WCB standards.
You are trusted to have good judgment and it's filed under "overcoming a falling difficulty"
We do it but they can't tell you to do it because that's not what they promote.
You just have to read between the lines. However that's the coast. It's the exception. A modified saw is a good example. It's a double standard.

How's the snow up there?
Hard weather year for you guys!

 

[bnmc98]

Sounds like wading through the regulations is enough to drive you to drinking.

We got 18" at the end of Sept. We had to bust drifts with the CAT to get over the top and down lower to keep working. Everything turned to mud.
Melting now, but we got another 4" last night. I have a feeling it will be a long winter.

Global warming is never around when you need it, only around when the environmentalists need it.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I usually fell trees uphill. Granted not much logging we do is by hand.

Much easier to skid going down the hill vs driving to pull the tree up.

 

[Skeans]

Normally hand falling I'll quarter down hill and yard by the top.

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[Westboastfaller]

What is this about avoiding uphill falling?

I wrote some ways to mitigate the situation with some safer cuts and reasoning behind it.
Instead of me writing something lengthy that you are just going to dismiss anyway... I'll put the ball back in your court and ask you Randy: Do you think it holds no higher risk on any hill?

 

[madhatte]

if you're running a Cat show

Are Cat shows the norm anywhere still? Seems to me the ground disturbance phobia types would have them extinct by now.

 

[Westboastfaller]

Are Cat shows the norm anywhere still? Seems to me the ground disturbance phobia types would have them extinct by now.

He's stuck in the 20th Century somewhere pulling high lead with a cat. I believe thats his reference "real world" I believe that was the successor to the locomotive which succeeded the bull which powered the earliest highlead. I'll have to ask him. He'll know.

 

[Westboastfaller]

The "real world" is extinct. Now we are left with education & regulation

 

[madhatte]

Well, no, he's right. In a Cat show, falling uphill makes sense. I'm just curious if such an operation is completely replaced with yarders and skidders and all.

 

[Skeans]

Well, no, he's right. In a Cat show, falling uphill makes sense. I'm just curious if such an operation is completely replaced with yarders and skidders and all.

We still run a grapple high track skidder they're super common here and all wood is put down hill butt uphill.

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[Gologit]

Are Cat shows the norm anywhere still? Seems to me the ground disturbance phobia types would have them extinct by now.

Cat logging is alive and well. It's a matter of semantics too. If it's not a helicopter or a yarder side it's generally referred to as a Cat show even if it's just rubber tired skidders. A lot of times you'll see a grapple Cat bunching for the skidders. That can really speed things up, especially if your skidder operators aren't the best.
The cost of yarder logging or helicopters makes ground lead shows very attractive. If you set up your strips and landings and skidroads just right you can get good production.
As a rule I see more Cat sides on private ground than on government timber.
And yes, the ground disturbance people don't like it. Too bad. Most of them don't like logging in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Gologit]

On the subject of uphill falling...You do whatever safely gets the production. Uphill falling isn't my favorite but neither is taking twice as long to get the wood to the landing.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I've never seen a yarder in person.

We cut with a tracked feller buncher, skid to a landing with grapple skidders, delimb with a stroke delimber and when the logs are needed truck away on a log truck with self loader.

Same type of logging in Maine as well. Some outfits run forwarders and processors doing CTL vs tree length though.

Ground disturbance doesn't really matter. The timber sales we have done they have used roads and skid trails we put in as ATV trails or moose trails.
We do a fair bit of clearing too, like the job I'm on now is clearing about 120 acres for a farm.

Go back on a logging job in 5 years and can't even find the skid trails if no one has been driving on them, it grows in quickly.

 

[Skeans]

Cat logging is alive and well. It's a matter of semantics too. If it's not a helicopter or a yarder side it's generally referred to as a Cat show even if it's just rubber tired skidders. A lot of times you'll see a grapple Cat bunching for the skidders. That can really speed things up, especially if your skidder operators aren't the best.
The cost of yarder logging or helicopters makes ground lead shows very attractive. If you set up your strips and landings and skidroads just right you can get good production.
As a rule I see more Cat sides on private ground than on government timber.
And yes, the ground disturbance people don't like it. Too bad. Most of them don't like logging in any way, shape, or form.

Have you guys had any of the tethering make it down your way yet?

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[Gologit]

Have you guys had any of the tethering make it down your way yet?

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There are two companies using them in this area. I've heard they're getting mixed results while they're figuring out the best way to use them.
I haven't seen them myself but I can see where they might do some good.
I don't know if I'd care to be the one hanging off of that machine, though.

 

[Westboastfaller]

I think they teach them that in school.

I didn't go to cutting school. I Grandfatherd. Certs didn't start to 2005 So I just had to register and pay
then get their flip books. If you qualified then you could still fall under your registry # . We had up to end of July '06 to get done. They said that was it. It was then or never for Grandfathering in . Many hung up the saw that couldn't keep the quality or didn't want the BS.

They did open it up again.
If 'you' have a work permit or even private insurance with supporting proof of past experience then you can fall here. Then they couldn't do to much to the falling contractor. It's another loophole In work safe OH&S regs. This had to be constructed in order for the trainee's to work because after a 30 day course they have to do 180 documented days with journals ect before they can do their written and practical. So
whoever it would be...they would have to know what they were doing obviously and they would just be signed off to work without a ticket on their own quarter. As long as the paper work is getting done.

 

[Skeans]

There are two companies using them in this area. I've heard they're getting mixed results while they're figuring out the best way to use them.
I haven't seen them myself but I can see where they might do some good.
I don't know if I'd care to be the one hanging off of that machine, though.

I know of the two companies around here that build the setups one uses a 527 track skidder with a swinger tethered for yarding now, well the other is using a tigercat 635 bogie drive skidder with the large arch tethered.

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[madhatte]

It's all skidders here, I've never heard it referred to verbally or on paper as a Cat operation. Note that when I say "here", I refer specifically to the 100K acres of ground where I work. Everywhere even 5 miles off of our property in any direction that isn't water is definitely yarder ground. We're pretty nearly the only flat, dry piece of timberland that isn't under suburbs in these parts.