The walk of a 1000 cords.

[haveawoody]

Well our first real nice day here in Southern Ontario and me with no jobs on so I decided to go for a relaxing trail walk.
I headed out to one of the Ontario protected walking trails and was enjoying the sunny day.
Soon into the walk I noticed a few ash trees felled and just left to mother nature, a bit further on 100s of them all from 2' to 5' and all about 70'-100', walked past quite a few shagbarks in the same format and two sugar maples over 5' on the ground.

1000's upon 1000c of cords of hardwoods just sitting waiting to rot in quite a bit less than 1/4 of the trail.
What a waste, you would think that some large brain would figure out that the trail system would look nicer with it gone and make some money to recoup the tree work that was done.
It's a protected trail so no person is allowed to touch thing one.
Next sunny day without me working I will head to the same trail with a camera and get some snapps.

 

[farmer steve]

i see the same thing in our state game lands here in pa. the overlords are hurtin for money but yet they won't sell any.the say it's wildlife habitat. you can't even go there and pick wild raspberries cuz if you get caught they will fine you.

 

[Speed]

Really makes you wonder the way they preach forest management, yet they refuse to take care of their own.

 

[slowp]

It is called down woody debris. The loggers around here call them rat logs. The trees will provide cover for little critters and later on will enrich the soil by rotting.

Around here because there is a perceived shortage of downed trees, loggers have to go in after yarding and drop a couple per acre. I disagree with the shortage, but you have to get out and walk the ground to see there are lots of trees on the ground and most 'ologists around here won't do that.

We also have different classifications of ground. In a large part of it, you can only cut the part of a blowdown that is in the road prism. Same reason as above.

Anyway, how would you get the wood out if it is a walking trail??

The picture shows a big old Doug-fir that blew down across a road. Because the land is classified as Late Seral Reserve, only the part that was in the road could be removed for firewood.

View attachment 293361

 

[avalancher]

Well our first real nice day here in Southern Ontario and me with no jobs on so I decided to go for a relaxing trail walk.
I headed out to one of the Ontario protected walking trails and was enjoying the sunny day.
Soon into the walk I noticed a few ash trees felled and just left to mother nature, a bit further on 100s of them all from 2' to 5' and all about 70'-100', walked past quite a few shagbarks in the same format and two sugar maples over 5' on the ground.

1000's upon 1000c of cords of hardwoods just sitting waiting to rot in quite a bit less than 1/4 of the trail.
What a waste, you would think that some large brain would figure out that the trail system would look nicer with it gone and make some money to recoup the tree work that was done.
It's a protected trail so no person is allowed to touch thing one.
Next sunny day without me working I will head to the same trail with a camera and get some snapps.

I get your point, but in all honesty in many cases it just would not work to allow that wood to be harvested. While I pick up after myself as most of you probably do, I see an awful lot of wood cutters that leave far more than just wood chips behind. The cost to send someone back in there and clean up would far outweigh any benefit to having the downed wood cleaned up. Some time ago a very large corporation had several hundred acres of woods that they selectively logged, and the place looked pretty nice after the brush was hauled out and burned, and I managed to talk the foreman of the job into letting me cut oak tops. Then folks who did not have permission to cut wood showed up, left their beer cans, oil cans, and every other form of trash behind and before long some clown showed up in the middle of the night and dumped a half a dozen old mattresses. The result? That company found out real quick it cost them money to let someone come in and "clean up" and they put a stop to it. the foreman stopped by my truck that last afternoon, noted my spot was clean of everything but wood chips and prints from my boots and truck and broke the news. And there was literally hundreds of good white and red oak still left to rot away, all piled nice beside the road.

 

[haveawoody]

slowp,

Yeah I guess it comes down to cost to remove it all for them.
It's a protected trail but backing from many access points right near the trail.
Pretty easy to be on one of the many of them and winch the logs up for removal.

I understand what they are doing since 95% of the dropped trees are ash, got to be some gifted government officials idea on how to stop the ash die off, the others dropped seem to have been trail potential blockers so understandable why they dropped them.

Just sad to see so many giant ash trees just dropped and left to nature to deal with.
Some mighty big ones 5'+ I walked past all I could think was well that's a couple hundred years gone and IMO all the ash will follow.

 

[Swamp Yankee]

Emerald Ash Borer?

This may not apply, but, I know there is an infestation in some areas of Ontario. If there is a quarantine similar to a lot of the infestations in the affected states in the US, the wood can not be moved, even locally within the quarantine zone, for fear of spread to non-infested areas by those that are either unaware of the situation or simply don't care.

I talked to one of the CT foresters about this at length back in the fall. He explained the jury is still out as to whether this practice will prevent, slow or do nothing to the spread of the EAB infestations. His opinion seemed to be the quarantines were at best a slowing, not preventative measure.

Take Care

 

[Swamp Yankee]

It is called down woody debris. The loggers around here call them rat logs. The trees will provide cover for little critters and later on will enrich the soil by rotting.

Around here because there is a perceived shortage of downed trees, loggers have to go in after yarding and drop a couple per acre. I disagree with the shortage, but you have to get out and walk the ground to see there are lots of trees on the ground and most 'ologists around here won't do that.

We used to do a lot of this type work but it mostly involved leaving tops slashed to contract, typically 3 foot max, height. This is still the case on most State Forest harvests, however with the increasing demand for chips as a bio-fuel, the practice of skidding out the entire tree and processing in the landing is on the increase. The saw logs are cut and removed and the rest, including what used to be sold off as firewood is run through massive chippers and hauled off. As I understand it there's more money in chips than firewood. The landowners are usually very pleased with this process as their woods look pristine with little visible aftermath of the harvest in a couple years.

Take Care

 

[rmount]

I remember there was some talk of creating buffer zones against EAB by dropping all the ash for a certain distance around infected zones to prevent/slow the spread. If this is one of those zones the wood couldn't be transported for firewood due to EAB quarantine restrictions. Whatever the reason, I know I can never drive or walk by a woodlot without thinking it's a shame to see all that potential BTUs laying on their side!