Prime Timber

[SliverPicker]

Folks, there is no where to go from here, but up.  I am guessing this is about 2 acres.  Before and after pictures. 1 long in the tooth Stihl 362. About 10 saw chains. 1 TF C5D and the emotional support of Toivo the dog.

This patch yielded about 35 tons of useable wood. Most of what I have been in this season has been 60% blown down.  This was about 99.8%. At least the ground was dead flat. 

I wish I had a GPS track of my skidder movements on this one. It would look like an explosion in a spaghetti factory.


Let the games begin.


Prime Timber.


2.5 days later.


The aftermath.


Approximately 30 tons of saw logs.


5 tons of cull pellet wood. Toivo is posing for scale.  He's right at 5 feet from nose to tip of tail.

I've lost right at 20 pounds since the second week in July.  Is it any wonder? :D

[treeslayer2003]

jeez silver.......be nice to get in some real timber eh.........

[SliverPicker]

No kidding. It's just junk as far as the eye can see.  It has gotten so discouraging all I do is laugh now. :'(

What I would give for a dangle head processor about now.

[chester_tree _farmah]

Wow. How old was the blow down? Sounds like u r in better shape at least! Nice work.

[CCC4]

Dangit mang! That strip was leveled huh! Sheesh! Get well soon all those dull chains! ! Hey, you running square filed or semi chisel on that stuff?

[SliverPicker]

I'm running chisel chain.  I've got my grinder down to a science I'll tell you that.

I don't know how long this stuff has been on the ground, but most of it has been dead for 15 years.  The place I'm working is where the Colorado beetle epidemic started in 1999.  It's a good thing we have a dry climate here.  In many other parts of the country this wood would have been worm food by now.

I'm 8 pounds heavier than when I graduated from high school after this season of cutting.  Not bad.

I really do wish I could track my skidder on one of these patches on a GPS.  I think the plotted track would be pretty impressive. Lots of miles per acre.

[redprospector]

Good looking job you did. Couple hundred more years and you'll have all the hills in the background done.  ;)
I've got a friend in Kremmling that is working in the beetle kill.
Southern NM isn't far behind Colorado if they don't do something pretty quick.

 
This is a burn from 2000 I have worked on the last 2 years. I'll be going back to it in the spring sometime. Not really looking forward to it, but it's a job.  ;D

[timberlinetree]

Nice job. Whats the elevation and do you have to adjust your saws for that altitude?

[SliverPicker]

The elevation is just hair under 9000 feet.  Those pictures of the decks are from Sunday it was 61 degrees.  Now there is 4" of snow there.

In this neck of the woods I not only have to adjust my saws from one site to another I often have to adjust from morning to afternoon.  Because of the elevation we have big swings in temperatures during the day most days. The biggest swing I ever saw was one time in the third week of March.  It was -26 in the morning and by 2 pm it was 55 above.

This job is about 20 miles from Kremmling.

That burn clean up doesn't look like much fun.

[chester_tree _farmah]

Those bigger straight trees would make nice cabin logs. Very little shrinkage in those I bet.

[redprospector]

This job is about 20 miles from Kremmling.

That burn clean up doesn't look like much fun.

The burn clean up probably isn't too much different than 15 year old bug kill that still has salvage value to it.
Most of the salvage on the burn is "Sugar Pine". The sap wood is mostly rotten, and the heart wood is as hard as a rock.

[thenorthman]

The elevation is just hair under 9000 feet.  Those pictures of the decks are from Sunday it was 61 degrees.  Now there is 4" of snow there.

In this neck of the woods I not only have to adjust my saws from one site to another I often have to adjust from morning to afternoon.  Because of the elevation we have big swings in temperatures during the day most days. The biggest swing I ever saw was one time in the third week of March.  It was -26 in the morning and by 2 pm it was 55 above.

This job is about 20 miles from Kremmling.

That burn clean up doesn't look like much fun.

Many years ago circa 1986? had the whole clan camping in the Big Horns Wyoming... 3rd of July sunny 70+ we all decided we didn't need no stinking tent, woke up to 4" of snow... We spent the better part of that independence day huddled under a tarp trying to get warm again... I would have been 8-9...