When Loggers Climbed Trees

[chris_girard]

How many of you guys have seen the video "When Loggers Climbed Trees", six short movies put into one video about loggers and climbers in the old days?

It is offered by the Mason County Historical Society out of Shelton, WA. I don't have the link but you can find them online.

I think the segment on Hap Johnson in "You asked for it" 1954 is really good. They also have "Spar Tree" video on it which has been discussed on TreeBuzz before.

 

[Wiley_P]

Loggers still climb trees, there are still a lot of tower sides out there.

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

[ QUOTE ]
Loggers still climb trees, there are still a lot of tower sides out there.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's why Wesspur still sells manilla. Timber guys are by and large, the only ones that still use it.

Jeff

 

[chris_girard]

Loggers may still climb trees for setting rigging for tail hold trees, but when was the last time one was climbed topped and used as a spar pole?

 

[Colin]

I bet it's a great video! Here's a cool link to some old timer days... http://www.archive.org/details/RedwoodS1940

 

[chris_girard]

Nice link MB!

You really have to admire those old timers and what they accomplished with so little.

 

[jphallman]

Haven't seen a spar pole used...well, since last summer!

 

[chris_girard]

Cool! You guys still use spar poles for yarding in logs on highlead sides out west? I did not know that. I thought all highlead towers were now only steel.

 

[jphallman]

Depends on the size of the show, and the thickness of the billfold.

 

[TreeCo]

[ QUOTE ]
Loggers may still climb trees for setting rigging for tail hold trees, but when was the last time one was climbed topped and used as a spar pole?

[/ QUOTE ]

Doing residential tree work I use a spar pole on average of every few weeks. Quite often the spar pole is a living undamaged tree that just happens to be in the right place. I often guy the spar pole. Spar poles work great getting wood up the hills in the steep backyards we work in. Sometimes the wood can be lowered right into a dump trailer if the set up is good.

I know this is a minor use compared to logging but what a labor saver it is even when used on a small scale.

Dan

 

[willie]

we called that a lift tree when i was logging dan. it sure is a back and leg saver in yards!

 

[Gerald_Beranek]

While clearing cross country right-of-way back in the 80's we used "lift trees, spar poles" almost daily to move brush, logs and stumps. Like Willie said,"Real back and leg savers" Got the book on its way, Willie.

The only person I know in Ft. Bragg who's still alive and who rigged spar poles is a fine gentelman named Charley White. He grounds for me once in a while. The last pole Charley climbed, topped and rigged here was in 1949, the year of my birth.

In the mid 90's I was rigging tail-holds and setting guy lines for Bill Colombi's yarder. Not high, only 60 to 80 feet, but two 17 inch Young blocks with straps weigh in at nearly 300 pounds. It's a common job in the woods today because more and more Cat and skidder ground is being yarded. And it's not always steep. So the reason for elevating the tail hold. Otherwise they'd be dragging the carriage across the slope and destroying it on stumps.

When I started rigging pull trees in '76 there were a lot of climbers working in the woods throughout Mendocino county. Many of who I never met, but heard stories about them through the local grapevine. A woods climber could pull in $200-300 a day back then. Which was nearly a weeks pay for the line clearence guys. Much different story today.

Jerry B

 

[chris_girard]

Dan and Willie, I'm sure that those "lift trees" are really a back and leg saver. I've never had the chance to use one on the logging jobs that I've worked on.

Jerry, I've seen the pics. and read in your Fundamentals book how you guys used "lift trees" too, daily for both aerial and ground run work stations and that sure is an efficient way to work as well.

Didn't you use one of those 17" Young tailhold blocks on that Pepperword Creek job? I remember reading about that pull tree job in your tree story dvd and your new high climbers book and was amazed by that job you guys did!

I guess there are not alot of old time woods climbers left anymore. In the video that I was telling you guys about, Hap Jonson in "Spar Tree" is 62 years old I think when he demonstrates topping a tree.

 

[chris_girard]

Dan, I was thinking about how you guys use spar poles as "lift trees" on steep backyards, and I remember reading a few years back about some loggers in Maine who were using a similar small scale yarding system. I did some digging in my files and found the article was in the Oct/Nov 99 issue of Sawmill and Woodlot Management magazine. This is a pretty good magazine ( www.sawmillmag.com ) and you can purchase some interesting back issues there.

In the article they talk about building a small 3-horsepower portable winch adapted to forest thinning. Despite its small size, two men could yard 7.5 cords of firewood per day from an area of about 1 acre. They called the winch "A Yankee Yarder".

Stringing a "skyline" in the air from the yarder to the wood permits running the mainline cable through a block(carriage) riding on the skyline.

To log uphill on steep ground, a two-drum system or a single-drum winch plus a spool of cable can be rigged as a gravity skyline as shown in my attachment. By the way , my wife did the drawing in the attachment using Microsoft Paint and she did a much better job than I could have done.

 

[chris_girard]

If you're logging for some heavy duty logging blocks check out this site.

www.youngcorp.com