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Scott G
Participant@Carl Russell 29056 wrote:
I have yarded to the top of steep slopes and rolled the logs down to pick them up again at the bottom. Hand logging on steep slopes can be pretty dangerous, but gravity can be used to one’s advantage, keeping the animals and machines in safe circumstances.
CarlSkidding to the top of a temporary sluice, dry or wet, and then rocketing the material down the hill to where it was picked up again on moderate terrain to be skidded/forwarded was pretty common out here back in the day. I guess you could call it an early form of swing yarding.
I bet the “snub men” were heavy drinkers…:eek:
ParticipantClick on the following links to view illustrations.
Timber Harvesting Systems Slope/Distance Operability
Ground-Based Systems Slope/Impact
These illustrations are from WSU’s Timber Harvesting Primer. It’s a great forest op’s reference that I often forward to folks. If you want the full copy you may go to my GoogleDocs site: Timber Harvesting Primer
Although this pub is directed towards western forests, it has applicability across all regions.
As has been mentioned, sites differ as far as what you can get away with. We can definitely operate over the recommended slope % but, in our western forests, potential site damage usually negates that option.
Just goes to show you can never have too many tools in the toolbox, …and thinking outside of that box is a good thing as well.
Participant
These are illustrations from WSU’s Timber Harvesting Primer. It’s a great forest op’s reference that I often forward to folks. If you want a copy you may go to my GoogleDocs site:
Although this pub is directed towards western forests, it can have applicability across all regions.
As has been mentioned, sites differ as far as what you can get away with. We can definitely operate over the reccommended slope % but, in our western forests, potential site damage usually negates that option.
Just goes to show you can never have too many tools in the toolbox.
Participant@Tim Harrigan 29054 wrote:
I saw a video of something similar of harvesting hay in Europe, probably mountains of Switzerland or Germany where they loaded a sled at the top of the hill, pulled it down with the team, the sled being pulled down was attached by cable to a sled at the bottom of the hill which was pulled up the hill as the load descended. If I find the video sometime I will provide the link.
I have a visual of a horse-drawn tram…
ParticipantI’m talking rise over run, as measured with my clinometer. I was always taught, and have witnessed, that working a 45% (not 45 degree) slope with a ground system was usually the upper limit. Granted, that is going to vary with surface conditions, but as a guideline that is what we typically stick to. Mastication equipment such as self-leveling Timbcos’ will work steeper ground fairly well but they are not forwarding material off the hill. Shovel yarding is fairly popular out here and can work well but can still be messy on adverse ground. Any steeper than ~ 50% and you are either contouring a road and pulling line down or up from the skidder or using a yoder, jammer, or skyline. Not that you can’t run steeper, I’ve taken rubber-tired skidders and a dozer down grades (fall line) up to 60% but I felt that reupholstering the seat on certain occasions might be needed due to the fabric being soiled…
The major/primary issue is tearing up the site. With grades like that you are spinning tires & churning up ground pretty consistently. Trails/temp roads with a straight line descent on that type of grade are nearly impossible to adequately mitigate surface drainage issues and ultimately will cause eroision and possible BMP adherence issues as well. About 25-30% is the top end, for very short runs that we will go with, even on temp roads. Drainage structures/diversions just don’t work well when you exceed 25-30%.
But…, I’m coming at this from the Rocky’s, not New England. A few work in steeper ground with skidders out here, but they really shouldn’t be doing so from a resource damage perspective.
If I’m coming down a really steep stretch with a horse I’ll skid tree length, often with two trained together or I’ll do a lousy job of limbing to create a bit more resistance.
My personal preference is to use a block in a spar with a rope.
Participant
Here is an old photo of a large load being belayed off the hill. A book I recently purchased titled “Woodsmen, Horses, & Dynamite” has a detailed sketch of a sophisticated belay device mounted on a mobile platform. I don’t have the book with me now but once I get my hands on it again I’ll scan the image and post it on here.
This is one of my favorite “back in the day” photos. The gentleman on the load seems quite contemplative. I would be too if I was trusting my & my team’s lives on that piece of well worn hemp/wire rope. Might even need to change my woolens’ during the course of the day… 😮
ParticipantAndy,
If you are working ground in excess of 50%, you are well out of the realm of a ground-based harvesting system.
ParticipantIf the question is does “power assist” already exist, the answer is yes. AKA “draw assist” has been available on some of the small tractor forwarding trailers for some time. Somewhere, buried from almost a decade ago, I have some video footage of it in action with a close up of the drive motors. The ones I have seen engage directly with the tires themselves, nestled in between the two tires on the bogie. They are driven by the loader/trailer hydraulic system and engaged with a lever located by the operator. They do not restrict force above and beyond what they are exerting. In other words, they won’t hold you back or create drag when they are engaged. I’ll look for the video, it may even be on an old VHS tape. I think it might be a rig made by Payeur.
So, with draw assist and brakes rear & front on a horse-drawn unit available, some of the issues being discussed are somewhat taken care of. The only serious doubt I would have is when you are “gettin’ after it” up a steep hill that the draw assist wouldn’t have the speed at that point to keep up & do much good. What I saw on the video were situations where they were trying to not get stuck in a hole or get un-stuck out of the hole. The only real definitive answer would be to find someone who has one of these rigs outfitted like that and get some feedback from them.
I agree with Ronnie for the most part; keep it scale appropriate and don’t build an operation larger than what you want to/can handle. That is why it is imperative that you have real numbers before you make a go/no go decision on cranking it up a few notches with advanced forwarding capability.
For my own situation, a horse-drawn Majaco, Payeur, or SJM forwarder would be perfect. The loader being key in creating the ablity to load a truck, build a large deck, sort, and be able to forward out decent payloads when given terrain that isn’t too severe. If I ever get to a point where I drag some of you out here to take on a large multiple team/teamster project during the cool Rocky Mtn summer (so you can escape the heat/humidity back there :)) I’ll contract out with some of my mechanical logger buddies for the forwarder capability to support that type of operation. It is all about what is scale-appropriate for your particular operation.
ParticipantA couple more. These are of Jim Brown’s operation in NY. Nice volume of nice logs on the landing, BTW 🙂
ParticipantI posted this on different site a few months back. For those of you that didn’t see it, here you go. I believe it is an SJM (Swedish).
ParticipantTom,
Many optimal skid distances are thrown around. The only bulletproof answer is “it depends”. As a forester, I’m sure you can think of all the site variables that would go into that. Horses excel at individual tree selection prescriptions where you have a short skid to either the landing or a roadside/trailside area where a self-loader or forwarder can easily access the logs. Downhill skid=best, level=good, uphill=sucks. If you are looking for a maximum efficient number before production really falls off; 300′ is probably the most universally thrown around number, but again, it depends… That is why some sort of forwarding capability to increase payload can be such a boom to the operation. Anytime you can increase the payload for the energy expended you have a more optimal situation. Attached is a link on some work that Grindstone Engineering put out about 13 years ago that demonstrates well the relationship between distance/topograpy and productivity.http://www.g-eng.biz/le/logsys/horse/horse2.htm
Mitch,
That is awesome! I love ‘ah ha’ moments. Did you follow the thread of Ronnie Tucker’s running gear he used for his mule operation down south? Any kind of forwarder operation can be nothing but a good thing towards the end of productivity and making life easier on our animals by keeping them doing what they do best. Here’s the link to the thread:Tim,
You probably already have this, or I already may have sent it out (as years go by my memory tends to fail me more often). Anyway, as an Oxman I thought you might enjoy this paper.As far as the discussion re: government assistance to enhance forestry efforts on the ground; I don’t want to hijack this thread. If Carl or Geoff want to move it to another thread that would work for me. I’ll just end with the fact that my dream is for the marginal product generated from TSI and improvement cuts to actually fund superior forestry without supplementation from stewardship grants. Out west, however, the current reality is we are not there yet.
ParticipantPhil, you have me fired up and approaching pissed off…
As someone who has spent well over two decades making their living in Colorado from forestry and rapidly approaching a half-century living in this State; I disagree.
If you are still living in the Ridgeway/Telluride area you should know the situation…
Intermountain Lumber, the last large mill in Colorado, is in receivership because it couldn’t make it with the hurdles that we currently face. Delta Lumber, Gary & Linda Sorensen’s family mill is in dire straits. We have the unfortunate combination of an unfathomable dump of beetle-kill coupled with an economy/lumber demand that is in the tank. Also, most of the material that is masticated on these projects does not have a market of any appreciable scale. We are not “blessed” with a pulp market out here. If you can’t sell all of your POL for firewood locally you are pretty much screwed. We are starting to get some small district biomass heating demand (which is a major part of my professional career) but presently is insignificant. Between two facilities, I only need 3,200 tons a year; which when you are generating 40-60T/acre, is inconsequential in the big picture of the State.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge proponent of bringing everything back local; take the mill to the woods and not vice-versa.
A majority of the folks from the CSFS have been dear friends & colleagues of mine for a very, very, long time. The Colorado State Forest Service is one organization that truly has the health and sustainability of the State’s forest resources as it’s primary goal.
The need to throw money at forest management in this State is for the reasons I just mentioned. Nothing would make the foresters in Colorado, including myself, more happy than to have truly viable markets of scale to accomplish the type of forest management we would all like to see accomplished without government subsidy. The cold reality is that it is just not there…
In order to currently pay for forest management & fuels reduction at a landscape scale in this State, we have to throw some money at it. Hopefully that will change in the not so distant future, but currently that is not the case.
If you want a true picture of the timber market in Colorado, contact Tim Reader out of the Durango district. He is the utilization and marketing forester for the CSFS & a damn good friend of mine. Within a very short span of time through conversation the picture will be painted. There are solutions but they require participation above & beyond. Are you game?
I’ll be at Troyer’s auction at the end of the month. If you are there, call me at 970-217-9692. We could talk face to face re: the present day realities of forestry in Colorado…
Participant@Carl Russell 28862 wrote:
Tom, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I’m also trying to work it out through discussion and feedback so the WE can preach to others. When/How do you think the supply/demand thing is going to change? I think we need to push the envelope. If we aren’t finding ways to prepare ourselves for landscape scale animal-powered forestry, we will always be relegated to the niche market.Carl
Carl! I had to read your post again because I thought I mis-read it. This is the first time I’ve heard you propose landscape-scale harvesting with a mixed-harvesting system and the inherent efficiencies that are obliged to accompany it.
I’ve held back on this thread and the same on FB for the very reason that I felt I would be preaching to the choir and have been on the soap box long enough when it comes to a horse & forwarder operation.
Scheduled hours vs actual operational hours (at capacity) are the make/break when it comes to mechanized forestry equipment. Keeping enough wood in front of a forwarder relative to it’s capacity is key. It takes a lot less wood volume to pay for an old farm tractor with forwarding trailer/loader than it does for a late model JD/CAT/TJ, etc forwarder. It is imperative to know what an operation’s forwarding capability would be before any further movement happens on putting the show together. If a forwarder isn’t running at or near loaded capacity and operational hours aren’t close to 80% of scheduled hours, an operation could bleed to death rather quickly…
That said, do you put enough fallers, swampers, & teamsters in front of a forwarder to keep it fed? Utilize a smaller machine that requires less wood but give up some efficiency, economy of scale, and unit cost is higher (something that is already the norm for using draft animals and implementing low-impact forestry)? Or have enough capital to operate for a while without mill receipts and enough intermittent staging areas-decks and/or brows to where you could bring in a forwarder on an hourly or volume basis ensuring max payload during the time it was there? Example, the small diameter material we have out here, especially lodgepole post & pole material, the latter scenario would work well due to the ease of stockpiling/decking the material.
Myself, a horse-drawn forwarder equipped with brakes and draw assist, would make the most sense since I’m pretty much the only horse logger in the immediate region (lowest cost). For those of you blessed to be in the northeast or elsewhere where draft animal loggers are more abundant, a co-op approach on running a show is probably very appropriate to get full use out of the forwarding capability available.
Using forwarders with horses/mules has been gaining ground steadily over the past few years. What I’d really like to see from a forest operations standpoint are real numbers – time/motion, utilization, and costs. There was a study done by FERIC of Art Shannon in Ontario comparing his horse/mechanical forwarder operation to that of a cable skidder show. Art won hands down. I’m trying hard to get my hands on that paper but FERIC keeps a tight grip on its work. We need current & real numbers. Carl… that is a MAJOR hint!
We have numerous tools/techniques available to the horse logger of the 21st century that enables him/her to enhance the quality of product they already deliver while possibly even make money doing it… Let’s use them.
Carl, are you headed to MOFGA-LIF this year?
ParticipantAndy,
55 gal drums or garbage cans are what I’ve always stored grain in. Ventilation/mold has never been an issue but then again we don’t have the humidity issues out here that you folks do.Participant@near horse 28718 wrote:
Scott – are you thinking of coming up? Woo hoo!
Maybe…, depends if I can finish up the projects that I need to before the snow flies. If I do, I’ll probably just pack the ‘baru and leave the truck/trailer & critters at home to save money (fuel, etc.). Sounds like a blast! 🙂
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