random and scary

[hammerlogging]

I was thinking yesteday while filling the woodshed....

We've discussed the typical hazards, widowmakers, snags, etc. Any situations less typical that caught you as particularly sketchy?

I for one think that cutting down the tree that the skidder was wrapped around and leaning on on its downhill side was a little unnerving. No where to go, nowhere to run, no escape, right under that big ol JD640 But, turned out ok. That was a few years ago.

 

[Bushler]

Crawling under a logging cat to cut off a stump is always exciting. Specially on steep ground....specially alone (and hoping the brake lock doesn't fail).

Yeah. There's a trick to cutting the stump too, all the downpressure from the cat makes it tricky...

 

[slowp]

Having to sometimes trust people that I've never worked around before--hooktenders for example. I've been told, "Stay in that spot, you'll be OK". Luckily, I have a sense of self preservation and usually have a big stump or tree picked out to dive behind. It doesn't happen very often. So, for being in the rigging, ALWAYS have something picked out to hide behind should things go bad, and be on your toes. You'll probably get a few bruises from landing on something, but it is better than the alternative.

Rolling logs are something else that still will happen even in a thinning. And that too, was somebody following behind me who set one off. Thinnings are a good thing when that happens, there's standing trees to step behind.

 

[arbadacarba]

Seeing sixty to eighty feet of tree top do the mary poppins thing and sail across a field. I've seen it twice with no hurricane and just a little localised twister in confined outflow area. Makes you feel kind of small!

Seeing a thousand pound stump fly through the air over someones head due to some overenthusiastic stump removal

Worst of all is any kind of exciteable person running heavy equipment within half a mile of me!!!

 

[hammerlogging]

Not logging, but still gets me... learning about sneaker waves surfing kayaks back when I lived near the OR coast. Big surf, you think you're outside the break, look out for the next set and "UH OH thats a REALLY big one rolling in" and start paddling out as hard as you can. I'm still thankful I didn't die out there some times.

Sorry for the off topic.

 

[forestryworks]

the thing that's always kept me on my toes is the "see saws". i don't know what the logging lingo for it is - if their is a term for it.

but you drop a tree and any part of the tree (butt, belly, top, etc.) hits the ground and sends a log the size of a leg end over end into the air.

always watching for those...

kind of a neat sight to see once you figure out where it's gonna land.

 

[Spotted Owl]

Make sure your tail holds and guy stumps are solid and capable of with standing the strain. Not many that I have seen will walk an extra 100 feet to a differnet hold over the top and let some earth take some of the strain and you still get the same lift and sometimes even just a bit more.

Make sure your twisters are locked in tight as a bull back side at fly time and the stick is strong enough not to snap. Nothing like your tension going slack at just the right time.

Drum line doubled up and then tied in an over hand knot, choked to a stump and then pulled tight.

Weak hydraulics or some problem with the graple. Close'em up then wrap a molly around them after they are closed and the load is lifted just enough to get the molly on so the jaws don't open on the return run.

Working with the office jockey boss wearing the bug when you have a new engineer than you aren't used to at the controls.

A new Hook from the outside tring to show good. No matter what the cost.

Bear traps.

If your going to be the one climbing, have your own gear. Or be the guy that takes care of it so you know what you have when the time comes. Nothing like being 60'+ up and having your spur bust off at the leg iron. Don't come down, set your riggin and then come down so you don't have to do it twice. Forget the rope and go with chain and a slip catch. Easier to adjust the length and chain doesn't seem to want to be as sticky as rope most of the time, chain will also bust some of the smaller limbs that rope will just hang up on.

Mostly, lack of basic maintenance and lack of good old fashioned common sence.

Stay the right size for your britches, keep your head on tight and your witts about you. After that there is a very small percentage that will happen that cannot be forseen. For that small percentage of nasties the above mentioned will be your best allies on keeping you alive and in one piece.

There are some places you have no other choice than to be, like Bushler under his cat, or Hammer cutting under that JD. Some situations are there and it just plain ole sucks to be there. The old saying, spit happens, get to work.


Owl

 

[RPM]

Having to spider web your tie backs to everything and anything you can find because your tail hold stumps are all half rotten hemlock shells with a Madill 124 rigged to the other end, yarding downhill. And the sound when that stump pulls and all the rigging as it goes flying back through the block ....

 

[ak4195]

Pushing someones elses stump pile with an open cab dozer,just never know whats hidin inside there binding up with tension....

ak4195

 

[Humptulips]

You know when I was depending on myself never had many worries but when I had to depend on someon else or a piece of equipment for my safety, not so good.
A few examples are riding in the pass chain or riding the riggin ( I know, not supposed to do it but it happens). Never really liked running a sucker block on the skyline either. There is just no way to get out of the bight. Had a number of very close calls that way.
And bucking stuff the cutting crew walked away from. I remember one incident we were on a blow down show, very steep down hill yarding. A big fir was laying straight down the hill exactly in lead so no way to swing it. It was about 8 foot, still had the roots on it and standing on end. Sawed all I could reach from the bottom then got up on the top on the roots crawled through a hole in the roots up to my waist and reached down to saw on the top. I would saw until it made a big pop, have a heart attack, get out of there and taker a pull on it with the yarder, wouldn't budge, repeat. I think I had about a dozen heart attacks before the yarder broke it loose.
A few pretty scary crew bus rides too. Friday night and beer thirty you know.

 

[Humptulips]

Just remembered another incident. We were highleading down in the cedar swamps of the Quinault Indian Res. I was hanging back in some nonmerch stuff (be good timber today) so the stumps were kind of sketchy. I was trying to drop back every road so I could get into a patch of timber and rig some lift trees. That made for a diamond lead on my roadline stumps. The crew knew the situation so they were being carefull. 1st tail tree I'm in I get some rigging back, dump the coils and blocks off and go ahead on it. There I am right by the lines and WHAM! down comes the tail tree. Missed me by like three feet. OK so no lift now boys, I take the block off the tree and go ahead on her again, standing pretty much the same place. Rigging hardly moves and WHAM! over the tree comes that my roadline block is in. Misses me by like two feet this time. I'm a bit upset to say the least. What the hell is going on here! Double slack the haulback, send it in and blow for the strawline, get things straightened out and no more problems the rest of the day. Engineer professes his innocense. Must have just been bad stumps.
About a month later engineer says to me remember those two trees I pulled down one after the other. I says yea. He says I forgot to take my maxibrake off, afraid to tell you till you calmed down.

 

[371groundie]

sketchy situation thats almost caught me and did catch somone in western maine this year:

you drop a tree and it lands so that the top is under tension but not enough to be noticeable. white pine did that to me so when i cut the top off it almost broke my shin. when i released the tension it snapped towards me. i guess a hardwood did that to somone in the snow this winter and broke both lower leg bones in two places.

only bit me once, but i pay very close attention for it now.

 

[arbadacarba]

When I was a kid we still had some old donkey's kicking around the property. One was a little overpowered for its skid size. To make a long story short, cable came taut, log nicked a stump and the whole donkey flipped right upside down, operator included. Seen tractors, skidders and bulldozers on their sides, seen a female truck driver come in white as a sheet because her truck decided to go skydiving off a mountain up north, but this one was the most memorable. Luckily the operator didn't come straight down with the donkey (centripetal force can be your friend). I'll always take my hat off to the old loggers. Way bigger trees and some insane equipment. Have a look at some of the old footage of breaking up log jams on fast flowing rivers - pike poles, a few sticks of dynamite and run like hell.

 

[hutch3912]

Got the saw pinched once so I took the bar off and left it in the tree and got the winch cable and used another tree as a fulcrom to pull it away from the skidder then around the pinched tree and tried to pull her over. Wouldn't go and I didn't have another bar or a jack or anything so the only thing I could think of was to climb the tree to get more leaverage. Climbing a partially cut tree will make your cheeks pucker thats for sure. Probably the scariest thing I've ever done, and would never do it again.

 

[redprospector]

I don't know if it's the scariest thing or not, but I hate having to cut in a bunch of dead aspen.
I worked on a sale once that had a big Aspen grove in it. We were told not to cut ANY Aspen for any reason. The guy in the strip next to me got hit in the shoulder when one of them fell. I got the top cover busted on a brand new 288. We left our strips and told the saw boss that if he didn't want any aspen cut, he wasn't getting any Fir cut either.

Andy

 

[Humptulips]

Got the saw pinched once so I took the bar off and left it in the tree and got the winch cable and used another tree as a fulcrom to pull it away from the skidder then around the pinched tree and tried to pull her over. Wouldn't go and I didn't have another bar or a jack or anything so the only thing I could think of was to climb the tree to get more leaverage. Climbing a partially cut tree will make your cheeks pucker thats for sure. Probably the scariest thing I've ever done, and would never do it again.

Reminds me of something a guy I worked with did. I worked with this guy for a lot of years. Hell of a nice guy and a fine logger. If you're from Grays harbor you probably know him, Mel Brooks. He passed away not long ago.
Anyway Mel was foreman and I was tending hook on a side for him. We were about done with a unit. Mel told me on the next unit the cutters had a big fir with two jacks stuck in it and couldn't get it over. It hung out over a sharp draw outside the unit and he asked me if I would climb it and put a line in it to pull it over. I was pretty skeptical of the sound of it but said I would look at it. While we were rigging up the wind started to come up and Mel got a bit worried so he took a chokerman with him and climbed it and put a line in it so that we could pull it as soon as we had the tower rigged up. When we pulled it it only had a piece of wood uncut about 6 inches by 2 feet on one side. the fir was about a six footer and probably 180 feet tall and the wind was blowing to boot. I told him he was nuts.

 

[Cletuspsc]

I think the most non-typical and scariest "hazzard" that got be was bucking logs off the back of a grapple skidder. What happened was as i bucked the last log the but of one of the logs i had bucked and was still in the grapple swung out over my head. Missed me by about an inch or so, and really scared the sh!t outta me. i guess what happened was i for got to release the pressure on the grapple and as i bucked the logs shifted and there for the grapple continued to squeeze.

 

[056kid]

its always a waker upper when you have to cut under,above, around equiptment.

i used to have to free the skidder several times a week for the kid that was running it.

Cut a deep kirf with a shallow face and go through the face as much as possible then hit the back alittle and let hydraulics do the rest!