See You All In A Week

[2dogs]

My son and the scouts are headed of to camp week beginning Sunday. I work at this camp removing hazard trees for the council. Some get pretty big, like 6' DBH and near 200' tall. Most are 2' to 3 1/2' in diameter and 120' tall. All are either dead or dying and have been marked by USFS. I should put in about 5 solid days of falling and bucking. Some of the trees are right next to the river in very sandy soil and scare the heck out of me. The rootballs tend to be very unstable and like to lift and pop as soon as the tree starts to lean. Gotta make the backcut very fast. I may bore those if needed.

I really wish I had a tree jack but I can not justify the cost. Plus my wife would cas****e me if I spent 2K on a jack. The trees often grow close together and the limbs lock and prevent the tree from falling. When that happens the limbs are too thick to throw a weight through the trees and climbing takes forever. I would also like to get a BigShot, maybe I could launch the weight over the tree and set the bull rope that way to pull the tree. Anyway I will take a bucket of wedges from 8" to 15" and whack away. I'll take pics this year.

I will be back next Saturday. Oh, this is the first of three trips I will make to the camp before winter to fall trees.

 

[Nailsbeats]

Sounds cool 2D. Jacks would be sweet, but the cost? yeah, what you said.

 

[abohac]

My son and the scouts are headed of to camp week beginning Sunday. I work at this camp removing hazard trees for the council. Some get pretty big, like 6' DBH and near 200' tall. Most are 2' to 3 1/2' in diameter and 120' tall. All are either dead or dying and have been marked by USFS. I should put in about 5 solid days of falling and bucking. Some of the trees are right next to the river in very sandy soil and scare the heck out of me. The rootballs tend to be very unstable and like to lift and pop as soon as the tree starts to lean. Gotta make the backcut very fast. I may bore those if needed.

I really wish I had a tree jack but I can not justify the cost. Plus my wife would cas****e me if I spent 2K on a jack. The trees often grow close together and the limbs lock and prevent the tree from falling. When that happens the limbs are too thick to throw a weight through the trees and climbing takes forever. I would also like to get a BigShot, maybe I could launch the weight over the tree and set the bull rope that way to pull the tree. Anyway I will take a bucket of wedges from 8" to 15" and whack away. I'll take pics this year.

I will be back next Saturday. Oh, this is the first of three trips I will make to the camp before winter to fall trees.

Good Luck. I'm heading with my family on vacation also. I'm taking my fishing pole instead of my saw though.

 

[forestryworks]

what scout camp is this?

after i got my eagle in 03 i helped out as much as i could between breaks in college and downtime in work...

haven't helped out any since

would love to help you out

in any case, work hard and be safe

and the whole of AS will be standing around like cattle waitin' on your pics

 

[2dogs]

I'm baaack! I did not get to fall all the trees I thought I would. The fires have closed several scout camps and this one was taking in "refugees" from all over the state. Several areas where hazard trees are located were filled with campers so I could not work there. Still I did work every day. I cut tall stumps to the ground, bucked up dozens of logs, and dropped a couple dozen trees. One tree was a dead cedar 18" DBH and it appeared to have its limbs locked with a nearby live cedar. I faced and backcut the tree but it did not move. I had left a hinge about and 1 1/4" wide and tapped in a wedge. I stacked another wedge and pounded them in but managed to lift the tree straight up and broke the hinge wood. I have had this happen before on smaller trees but never one so big. The tree was sitting on the two wedges and standing straight up. I could even make the tree wiggle it was so limb locked. The throw bag and bull rope were back at the truck of course. I ended up cutting the live cedar which fell to the ground but left the dead tree hung up at a 60o angle. I finally had to piece the dead hanger out 4' at a time till it hit the ground.

I'm posting a pick of a an old widow maker my son and I took down the first evening. The bottom of it was about 7' off the ground so I tied a rope to it and yanked-nothing. I had 6 guys pull on the rope but the widow maker did not move an inch. Next I threw the weight over the top and placed the bull rope in the perfect spot but still the widow maker did not move. Finally I used a come along set on a 1 ton pull and pulled the widow maker out of the tree. As (I hope) you can see the branches had grown into the tree about 2 feet! I have never seen 2 trees joined together like that. The funny thing was is we could not find where the widow maker's stump was.

This series of pics is a job I have to do in September or early October. The long fir laying across the river will stay but the floating cedar on the right and the big cedar laying across the fir have to come out. I think the root wads will stay for fish habitat but I'm not sure yet. I don't yet know how I will handle the big angled cedar. I though about crippling it and hoping the spring flow will break the log but if we get a dry winter then the job will be even more dangerous. I may use a dozer and pull the log over to the side but that means tearing up a campsite to get near enough. Suggestions?

This last image is from a flag retirement ceremomy our troop put on. The flag flew above the local Elk's Lodge, our charter organization. It was a very large flag as you can see by the size of the canton and had to be cut into pieces before retiring.

One last pic from the Martin Fire here in Santa Cruz. My son Cody took this picture across the street from the fire station a week after the fire.