Mount St Helens

[Al Smith]

In 1980,Mt St Helens,had a massive eruption,that is now just a piece of history.A question came up at work,that I couldn't answer.As I recall,several hundred square miles of forest was blown down by the blast .I was under the impression,perhaps incorrectly,that the downed trees were basicaly traded to the lumber companys in return for replanting of the area.Is was argued that the gritty condition of the trees would be a detriment in proccessing them into usable wood products.I would tend to agree with that.Would anybody with knowledge of the outcome of that situation care to address it.I was 3,000 miles away,and haven't a clue.

 

[Ryan Willock]

quite a bit of the timber was salvaged and milled. You can see the salvage operation at work from two of the movies baileys sells.

 

[caryr]

 

[Al Smith]

My whole point in the post was to try and establish what was done about this nature disaster and the trees.Tom Dunlap started a recent thread concerning a bunch of fire ridden trees and what ,perhaps the outcome should be.I am therefore under the assumption that the replanted forestry,is that which is thriving?If so,it would indeed prove my point as to wise usage of an otherwise devastated bunch of timber .In a round about way,have your cake,and eat it too.

 

[caryr]

 

[Al Smith]

As a side note,I have been under the impression that the lodge pole pine requires fire to crack the cones,so they can germinate.Being in the eastern hardwoods,I really have no knowledge of the western trees,other than reading etc.

 

[swampwhiteoak]

A company (weyerhauser maybe ?) owned quite a bit of land next to the national forest that was hit as well. They salvaged most or all of their land and replanted the area. I was there a few years ago, very dense stands of noble fir. Government land is growing grass and flowers and still has jackstrawed trees everywhere.

I don't think this is lodgepole country.

 

[P_woozel]

When I was working for the Forest Service we got detailed to the St. Helens R.D. for a couple of weeks and the cutting sucked, a lot of the wood was just impregnated with ash, carbide chain didnt make much difference, we just got the crap on the ground, I would grind chains for the next day from 1400 to around 1800, that was just to get 5 saws ready for the next day. I wondered how the mills were processing the stuff, maybe they washed it under high pressure water first.

 

[caryr]