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Mark K's blowdown site

Started by JohnG28, January 20, 2011, 06:40:56 PM

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JohnG28

I got a chance to take a ride down to where Mark is working a blowdown site today.  This was a pretty big area and the pics only show a small part of it.  This area was pretty much leveled through the woods here.  I only got to see part of the site, its tough terrain and stretches quite a ways.  Hope you all like the pics, Mark can tell ya more about it.












The snow makes it hard to see how much wood there is on the ground.  Theres trees just about everywhere, some places stacked several deep.












Thats Mark there with his Timberjack. 
Thanks for letting me stop down today Mark, had a good time, heck of a job you got there. :)
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Kevin

Thanks for the pictures John, looks like a mess.

lumberjack48

I like his factory built wheel weights, nice Jack, tough logging that blow down.

Third generation logger, owner operator, 30 yrs felling experience with pole skidder. I got my neck broke back in 89, left me a quad. The wife kept the job going up to 96.

Mark K

Thanks John for posting them. Those wheel weights are cheap but tend to fall off when it gets warm :D. I had it thawed out a couple weeks ago. Froze on faster than i could scrap it off.
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Norm

Now that's some tough logging. Thanks for the pictures guys.

thecfarm

What a mess.What caused all that? Kinda looks like the mess over by Sumner,ME.Drive along the road and it looks fine,than all at once looks like the above pictures than you are right out of the mess.I would hate to guess acres,20 maybe? Can't remember now. High winds caused it,microburst?
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Autocar

If nothing else it should be good rabbit hunting in a few years  :D Ive worked a number of torando jobs over the years and there extra dangerous and alot of work. Be careful !
Bill

JohnG28

No problem for the pics Mark.  It looks like you can see the landing area in the 3rd pic, if I have it right.  Theres 2 larger standing trees in the right side of the pic, and just to the right of them is a little pine of some sort, looks like a Christmas tree way off in the distance.  I think that is about where the landing is, if I have my bearings right. 
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northwoods1

Quote from: Autocar on January 21, 2011, 02:13:44 PM
If nothing else it should be good rabbit hunting in a few years  :D Ive worked a number of torando jobs over the years and there extra dangerous and alot of work. Be careful !

The rabbits tend to get right in there don't they :) and that brings everything else like fox asnd coyote. I saw more big bobcat tracks around the big blowdown we had around here the past ffew years than ever. One of the other  guys I was working with called the local game warden to look at some tracks along where we were cutting cause he thought they were mountain lion, but I looked and thought they were just giant bobcat. I tried hunting them rabbits in the blowdown, it was impossible without a dog. Lots of tracks though
Those pics , I bet that is a lot hillier than it looks , I know in photos it is always steeper and harder ground then what might appear. Mark , could you describe what your looking at in the photos? Did you get a start in this area and how are you going about it? The snow makes it hard a guy just has to work into and area. Are you just cutting the tipped over wood or what?
In the storm we had here in 2007 a lot of timber was lost. It was from a tornado. The path was 40 miles long. It passed within 1-3/4 miles from my home. An f-5 tornado with 200mph winds that left a path 1 mile wide of total destruction for the entire length , but yet like where I live half way from start too finish it was the most severe, about 3 miles wide total damage. At a minimum the storm blew down 25,000 acres or more, I thought it was 10,000 of just federal land. 
Me and two other local loggers worked on a big stretch of it here, which was composed of 2 different Federal sales and 90% of the private land in about a 5 mile stretch of it. To divide up the units to cut on Federal land they brought a helicopter in to drop the paint marking property boundries. It flew by GPS which was fairly accurate, but it was off when the wind started blowing while he was painting :D more or less just told when you where coming up to a surveyed line which their were a lot of. The snow is difficult to deal with , but we had to work straight through the deep stuff. Seemed impossible at first digging for that wood , but you can get a system worked out where it goes pretty easy. Dull saws,  you got to get used to sharpening pretty often hey?
I would always like drive everywhere I could and knock the snow down. Then cut my way in to it taking advantage of the direction of tip. I liked to pull a whole bunch of tree length out to the areas where the snow was packed down, and then buck it up and skid it out with a forwarder that seemed to go faster. Sometimes I forwarder works to good effect in that stuff because you have a loader to pick the trees up and knock the snow off if you can buck them up right there. The processors worked all the small wood here. You had to have pretty good wood to be cutting by hand and making any kind of time.
Walking around in blowdowns like that with deep snow you can tend to fall through sometimes. I kept thinking I was gonna step on a bear den a lot of times when I was poking around near the butts of those trees :D The bear population did increase a lot here because of the wind that is for sure :)

Mark K

John, that is where the landing is about 3/4 of a mile away to the closest edge of the blowdown. Northwoods- ground is terrible down there, steep with alot of small gullys. Have to watch where your walking or the next thing you know your up to your chest or deeper in snow. Tree's are strawstacked in the center but the weather society says it was a windshear. This is a state job and everything goes. Trees that are standing are not by much. Going down tomorrow to move front chains to back and put my bear paws on. Hate to because everytime I do something breaks. I'm getting tired of sliding down hills with 7 tons of iron. Seems like I sharpen just about every cut or two when cutting from the root ball. This went down in July, when I first went there all leaves were still on. Wood was under ALOT of tension then. Not to bad now.
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SwampDonkey

Quote from: northwoods1 on January 21, 2011, 03:49:19 PM
I saw more big bobcat tracks around the big blowdown we had around here the past few years than ever. One of the other  guys I was working with called the local game warden to look at some tracks along where we were cutting cause he thought they were mountain lion, but I looked and thought they were just giant bobcat.

Here's some bobcat tracks from our toughest winter on record 07/08. I've never seen another track since.

Eight foot jump.


Six foot jump




He came across 100 acre open field.

The hares up here thrive in spruce plantations. I have a small group of coyotes doing their part.  Last winter I noticed the hare population pretty much exploded, and lots since in my woods. ;D

Mark, that sure is a mess to work in. Dedication is what comes to mind. ;)
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loggit

Wow  Nice pictures,  hey Mark all I have to say is better you than me  :).  If the snow gets much deeper you'll be finding the wood with the blade. Tough job.

PAFaller

Looks like a rugged job. Mark, what year is your jack? I see you have the all-weather cab like mine...as in you sit in all the weather ;)
It ain't easy...

Mark K

I think it's around a '70. Not sure though. I've been thru about every part of it. For what i gave for it and what I have put into it, she's paid for herself 10 times over. Really simple to work on and really stable. Im thinking of updating and keeping this one for a spare. It'll be another Jack.
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CX3

Mark that looks tough.  Good luck. 

I worked some blowdown stuff last year, and like you said the mud and rock get thrown right on the spot that needs cut off.  I bought a log wizard, and chewed through the muddy parts to clean it off.  It takes another saw, and you have to pack it around with ya, but it makes for great clean cutting, and you dont have to sharpen nearly as much. 
John 3:16
You Better Believe It!

Mark K

I don't know why i didn't think of that. I have a log wizard on an old 7-10 Mccullough for my mill. I'll have to give it a shot. Thanks.
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John 3:16
You Better Believe It!

Maine372

Quote from: thecfarm on January 21, 2011, 11:20:34 AM
What a mess.What caused all that? Kinda looks like the mess over by Sumner,ME.Drive along the road and it looks fine,than all at once looks like the above pictures than you are right out of the mess.I would hate to guess acres,20 maybe? Can't remember now. High winds caused it,microburst?

that was a tornado believe it or not. that stretch on route 219 is just the tip of the ice berg. theres more out on bonney rd. that tornado started over in paris and started jumping ridge tops. it would set down and flatted 20 acres the pick up move to the next town and do it again. no one has been in there to clean up the mess either. all private ownership.

PAFaller

Mark are you contract cutting that for a mill or did you buy it on your own? If you are contracted I hope they gave you a RAISE!! for that tract. I dont know what part would be more nerve wrenching, the cutting that kind of timber or trying to buy it with no real way of knowing how much volume is actually salvageable. If my memory serves me correctly when PA put some blowdown up years ago you bid a price per thousand and then paid for what you were able to use. Beats trying to lump some bid on 50 acres of pick-up-sticks!!
It ain't easy...

Mark K

Im contract cutting for a mill. This is a state forest that was put up for bid. The state basically come in and took a sample area, calculated the footage and multiplied it to come up with the total. Alot of the timber averages out over 24"dbh. I cut some hard maple that was over 34" dbh and could get 3-4 good saw logs. Theres a lot of cherry, hard maple, ash, bass wood and yellow birch.
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northwoods1

Quote from: Mark K on January 22, 2011, 01:24:08 AM
Im contract cutting for a mill. This is a state forest that was put up for bid. The state basically come in and took a sample area, calculated the footage and multiplied it to come up with the total. Alot of the timber averages out over 24"dbh. I cut some hard maple that was over 34" dbh and could get 3-4 good saw logs. Theres a lot of cherry, hard maple, ash, bass wood and yellow birch.


I'm just curious, are those photos of where you have cut out all the merchantable wood already or?

What are the markets out there is it just logs or do you have pulp / firewood markets too?

In the large blowdowns I worked all slash had to be piled , and where it was along roads it had to all be pushed back for fire prevention. Then it was burned in all the areas to be re-planted.

Here are a few photos of some of the jobs before , during and after.


Here is a pic of the actual tornado taken from about the end of my driveway. The neighbor kid thought it would be fun to chase it and take pics this is one he took. That is a mass of air 1 mile wide rotating at 200+mph and traveling at 75mph.  When this pic was taken it had already went 20 miles and had another 20 to go, never left the ground the entire time. In the next 60 seconds about 3000 acres of the nicest pine plantation you have ever seen will be flattened.






This is part of what it took down in the 60 seconds after that the previous photo was taken.




Here is looking out over part of the 1 mile wide path this is all 4th thinning red pine, very high dollar wood.




Here is some of the residual damage 1 mile off to the side of the path.




Here is a deck of wood on a private 80 I was cutting. I cut all the oak and pine logs, the rest was done mechanically. The landowner lost almost exactly 40 acres of his beautiful timber.




Here is a highway sign I found 3/4s of a mile from the road. It was stuck to this stub. It says this way to the national forest campground. That isn't the strangest things we found, on one job we found an aluminum boat or what was left of it a full 3 miles from where it was torn off a guys trailer as he was traveling down the highway. It was lodged 40' up in a tree. Forester took registration # off it and kindly returned it to the owner :)




burning slash




me cutting on a deep snow job, was a full 4' deep in February. If I had to do that job again it would surely kill me. It was a very stressful time, and I tend not to get stressed out but that job sure did it :D



Autocar

Man wouldn't that make you sick if you were the landowner ? The tornado jobs Ive done are never over ten acres so far. I don't know if I would take a job where you had to stack all the tops, maybe if a fellow had a bobcat with a grapple. After a few weeks climbing over and under everything I bet you were ready for a few days at home  :D Thanks for scharing your pictures.
Bill

Mark K

Northwoods-The only wood that is cut are the stumps you see right in front in the picture. There's about 2 feet of snow on top of everything when them pictures were taken. I just came from down there, they got another 10" between Friday night till this morning. I wanted to get the skidder fired up and break up the skid trails so they freeze hard tonight. There now predicting roughly -20 for tonight. I am pulling everything 6" and up. Whatever doesn't make sawlogs goes for firewood. Them pictures you have look like a fun mess to work in. Bet you had alot of fun sorting that out.
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SwampDonkey

Back in November 1995 we had a windstorm that wiped out 5000 ha (over 12000 acres) of timber in the Christmas Mountains. They were three years salvaging. If you look on Google earth, the only timber standing is in the gullies and stream bottoms. Everything is gone outside of that. ;D That was the only time we had activists out in the woods, college students and natives, they figured it was a massive clear cut from news reports. They were just salvaging wood. The fir all snapped off above ground and the spruce uprooted. This was all before widespread internet, so there is nothing about it on the net now.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Magicman

A tornado traveled diagonally through my property in 2005.  That ½ mile swath will never recover during my lifetime.   :-\
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