Logging 5 Miles of 14 foot wide ski trail-- what is the best method??

[snowkraft]

Hi,   This is my second post. I can't believe I did not see this forum earlier. It is most astonishing and has incredible scope.

I own Snowkraft Nordic in Sturgeon Bay, WI, (near Green Bay) a not-for-profit XC ski center with skate and mountain bike trails. I have 180 acres with red oak, aspen, maple, birch, white oak, a few varieties of ash, swamp white oak, and elm the majority, with a small amount of beech, cedar, and hemlock. There is LOTS of honeysuckle, witch hazel, and prickly ash.

One section of about 20 acres is an old apple orchard, and there is about 55 acres of planted pines, consisting of white pine, white spruce, red pine, and, ummm, ash. Forty acres of the plantation is about 45 years old, 15 acres about 15 years old.

I have a massive amount of questions, the most important at the moment is what equipment to use to make approximately 5 miles of 14 foot wide ski trail thru an 80 year old forest section with maple, oak, ash, red oak, and white oak. I will not have to remove many trees over 12 inches, (maybe 50) and just a few over 20 inches, the majority to remove being aspen of about 5-10 inches, a few birch, and just a couple maples and oaks. 

I have 3 miles of wooded trail now, which I made about 15 years ago when I was young and dumb- so will not be making trail that way again. Hehehe. It is important to have an understanding of the equipment I have:
1. Gehl 7810 100 HP skidsteer w/metal trax
2. ASV SR80 80HP tracked skidsteer
3. Kubota U17 15 HP mini excavator
4. 15 yard dump truck
5. 7 foot wide root grapple for skidsteer
6. Log grapple for skidsteer
7. Optimal 1100, 48 inch tree spade
8. Running gear/Hay Wagon
9. Husky 345 clearing saw, (2)
10. 6 Husky chainsaws from 28 to 14 inch bars.

I am planning on buying an 18-30,000 LB excavator to level the trail, with assistance of skidsteer with bucket and dirt from dump truck. I don't know which size exc is best. I don't want to buy something that is too big and hard to maneuver on the 15 foot trail. What size excavator should I buy?? I want to be able to control how the trees fall, so for felling am thinking either a tree shear such as Fecon 15 with buncher for my skidsteer, OR a head for the exc I will purchase. What do you think is the best route to go?? If I buy a Fecon for the skidsteer, I could later use it to carry out/thin pines in my plantation.

Getting wood to loading zone: I'm not sure of the best way to get wood to a loading zone. The ski trail will wind, so taking logs longer than 20 feet out would be hard. I saw the grapple for the back of a skidsteer. That looks interesting. I was thinking maybe the best way to go would be a trailer for a UTV. (I have a 100 HP UTV.) I could use this later when thinning pines. What is the price of a used ATV logging trail w/o grapple??

I was thinking about a mulching head for the excavator, but they look fairly expensive. At what price can I get a good, used head that has at least a 6 inch capacity?? (I know it will vary depending on what size excavator I buy.) I am impressed with Denis Cimaf heads from looking at Youtube. I would sell the head after making trail. Will it be hard for me to sell the head??

Alternatively, I could buy a used woodchipper, maybe 15 inch capacity, to mulch branches and small trees on the trail. This would be more work, but I could collect the wood chips to use for about 500, 12-15 foot pine and spruce trees I will plant with an Optimal 1100, 48 inch tree spade when thinning my 15 year pine plantation. I will move the trees to meadow areas. I plan to do this next year.

I guess I could maybe rent the excavator mulching head if that makes sense. I'm thinking it will take about a month to mulch 5 miles of trail. What price could I rent a head for, and is it difficult to set up??

Oh, I almost forgot I have 300 or so fairly large ash to cut (15-24), and hundreds of smaller ones, as well as about 100 elm trees, a few bigger. I will probably do this at the same time I make ski trail. If I get an ATV trailer, it will have to have a fairy high weight capacity. I can use my skidsteer to pull it as well.

Well, that was a lot to read, but want to do this right, as that will save thousands. I welcome any input. Does this all seem to make sense?? Would you do anything differently??

thanks,     ...tom

[Weekend_Sawyer]

Have you thought about contacting a logger to do this for you?
Seems like a lot of equipment for a one time use.

Jon

[Neilo]

Can you put the wood in the dump truck with your excavator to remove it from the trail? I would fall by hand to keep the cost down.

[thecfarm]

I read not for profit,skate and moutain bike trail? Have walking trails too? reason I ask,grant,state money. Who knows they may pay you to do the work.   

[nativewolf]

So like any logging project, start with the marketing.  Do you have a viable market for a little bit of pulpwood?  I doubt it...that is so little wood.

That's less than a  2 acre clearcut basically, 15 * 5280 * 5.  So you don't have much volume.  I'd save any nice logs and look to mulch the rest or set aside for firewood.  I really think you have a forestry mulching project and for that either skidsteer with a nice FAE head (assuming they are high flow) should work out just fine.  I am not a fan of forest mulching heads on little excavators, they bog down.  The great thing about forest mulching on a good head (FAE is the best in my opinion-worth what you just paid) is that you can stop a lot of future regeneration by getting to the root collar. 

However, if you don't have a mulching head, just contract this out, should only be a few thousand and far cheaper than a FAE head.  This is not a big mulching project.   Ok, once mulched you are into excavation and at only 15' wide you are going to want that small machine.  Others know more than I do about road building and I have no idea what acceptable slope is on something like a cross county skiing.

As for your other logging project.  What do you want to do with the wood?  Just get rid of trees?  Do you have a sawmill?  do you have too much time on your hands?  nothing like a sawmill  :D

[nativewolf]

Apologies, I could answer a few questions I didn't answer.  First A month is too long, it is a day or two job for an experienced mulcher depending upon the equipment they have.  A going rate for head rental can be found on machinerytrader or places like that, use advanced search and screen by rental only.   You can rent dedicated machines for under 10k a week or even a month if they are small.  I think just a skid steer head with be a few thousand a month, but that is a guess.

The Denis C heads are great as long they don't hit rock or dig into the ground.  They want huge flow and an excavator mounted head is the easiest to keep out of the ground thus you'll find his heads on excavators more often than not.  Maybe that is all he makes.  I prefer FAE because I like to get dirty  :D.  And I think you want the same thing.

I think you want to get into the ground and I would go the other way from Denis heads.  Look at for soil tiller heads by FAE, those will do a serious job, they are typically pto powered and go behind a machine.  Ideally you could rent that out as well, those heads are $ and are niche harder to sell.  I'd definitely contract it if that is what you decide to do.  FAE can put you in touch with folks with those heads.  After you mulch you need to be prepared to stop soil erosion by seeding, a local farmer could easily seed that with native grasses if you had the grass seeds ready.  With those heads you are going to add a day or two as they are slow.  Really slow.  However if you did a forest soil til you'd really have a loose trail surface that would be easy to groom.  Just thinking. 

Look at RB auction or other auction sites for heavy equipment and look at the forest mulching machines used by the pro's- you'll see FAE-50% over all others combined.  There is a reason for that.

[Raider Bill]

You need a bull dozer.

[chevytaHOE5674]

That's less than a  2 acre clearcut basically, 15 * 5280 * 5.

5280*5= 26400
26400*14= 369600 sqft
369600/43560= 8.48 acres

But even so its a small area. I would find a logger and have them come in and take all of the merchantable wood out, then have somebody with a mulcher come back through and grind everything down to the dirt. If you need to do some leveling then use the excavator you have or hire somebody to do it. That small of a project it would probably be cheaper to farm it out rather than to buy all the equipment.

[nativewolf]

ha, I dropped a digit.. good catch, love the forum.  Still pretty small.

[BargeMonkey]

For what your doing, or may do in the future I would not buy a machine over 18k, max about something in the "80" size. The newer Kubota's have a 6 way blade and are handy, we have 3 excavators and the little one works the most. Honestly if I was going to cut this, I would hook the pintle plate on my skidsteer to my chipper and feed it with the mini, you can move along pretty quick. For the amount of work you have I wouldn't look into a grinder head, big HP, big fuel. I've got some pictures of another loggers bobcat with the grinder going up in flames a couple weeks ago. Where I'm at they are rare. For the diameter your cutting a shear head would be handy. How much "labor" do you have access to ?

[Ron Scott]

I've constructed many miles of X-country ski trail, snowmobile, trail bike, bike, and, ORV trails systems on National Forest lands. We usually had the trails cleared and constructed by a contractor, preferably wherever possible by a logger through a commercial timber harvest as the most efficient and effective way.

We wouldn't have many trail systems if it wasn't for the loggers. ;)

[snowkraft]

Wow, thanks for all the info. It was just what I was looking for, and it will, indeed, save me thousands. Thanks again!!

The posts made me realize that I should rent, not buy, some items, and also look into using a contractor. I may even be able to get by with renting an 18,000 lb excavator. After making trails, I will be digging about 5 acres of ponds, so I will need a bigger excavator, more like a Cat 325- around 50-70,000 lb, maybe 5 loads to fill up dump truk, which I will definitely buy. I also will use that to load my dump truk to haul soil to ski trails to level and add banking- maybe 100 loads.

The FAE head sounds like a good idea. To level the trail well, I either have to take out stumps or grind down around a foot. (I CAN add soil in some areas to cover stumps.) I'd guess that it could be quite expensive, however, like at least $2000 per mile??

I see the point for felling manually, but I can't control as well felling direction then, and want to try my best to not injure trees.

I sorta see now two options:

1.) Rent 18K excavator and either a felling head for that OR rent a shear for my skidsteer. Cut trees, remove logs. Hire a contractor with an FAE tiller to grind stumps. There are some areas on hillsides I'd guess he would not be able to work on.

2.) Rent 18K excavator and dig around trunk, then push tree over with skidsteer, or exc if there is enough power. (I used this method to remove a few trees, even a 24" aspen, with my 4000lb Kubota U17 and skidsteer, and worked fairly well, but exc of course underpowered.) Remove logs. Remove stumps, OR could some machine grind loose stumps on location??  Clean up branches with wood chipper.

I may be able to get a bit for aspen as firewood, and the rest of the logs I'll probably save and make wood to later use to build a house, and probably also sell some of it. I may have to buy a mill. Hehehehe.

The ash on my property just started to lose bark last fall. Is it still OK to sell to a lumber company??

[snowkraft]

Hoping to get a response to about how much a forestry tiller contractor will cost per mile, or cost per hour. I know it will vary based on terrain and tree size and density, among other things. Also, will ash trees still be sellable to a lumber company if bark was falling off last fall??

I did actually rent a large excavator, Cat 320, about 15 years ago to remove stumps on part of my trail. It went fairly fast; well, except for the transport of stumps to a vacant field. That took a bit of time. I like to do things myself if I can, but I do see the time advantage for hiring a contractor w/tiller.

What I have done in the past to level the trail is transport loads of dirt, without rocks, so that I have a super smooth surface, which enables skiing in much lower snow than any other ski areas. I think I have about (600) 15 yard loads of dirt on 6 miles of existing trail. I planted the grass seed myself, which I bought from a farmer, and that went fairly well. 

[pine]

Hoping to get a response to about how much a forestry tiller contractor will cost per mile, or cost per hour. I know it will vary based on terrain and tree size and density, among other things.

Have no idea what the going rate is in Sturgeon Bay, WI for forestry mulching services.
However
In my area of the PNW most of the contractors are charging 1500 per day.  My dealer tells me up a bit further north from me that they are getting 3000/day but have never verified that and it seems extreme but the area is rather affluent and I am certain that is not a sustainable pricing if it even exists.
The cost per mile type of bid you most likely can never get without an on-site evaluation.  Tree size, terrain, size of CWD (coarse woody debris) left behind all factor tremendously into the amount of work that can be accomplished in a day.  I have had sites where I have done under an acre  a day and sites that several acres can be done in a day.  As I said, size of the end product and how much time is required to produce that size will vary tremendously based on your conditions.  From your description of what you want I would presume you want the result to have  a "parked out" look and that will take a lot more time than site prep for reforestation which is what most of us out here do with our mulchers.  We like CWD to be in various sizes to slowly rot into the soil to feed the next generation gradually not a consistent fine mulch that looks like beauty bark. Again make certain that you and your contractor have a joint understanding of exactly what you want as an end product or the result he provides may not be the result you want. (Pictures or site visits of previous jobs are a great way to do this)  For that reason alone you may not be able to get a job bid price just an hourly rate.

These mulching heads are not cheap and take a beating. They take a pretty good hydraulic flow rate (37 to 45 gpm) and thus the prime movers for them are not cheap and cost a fair bit to run.  Google Fecon and FAE and DENIS CIMAF and look at the You Tube videos of them to get a better idea. There are two types to look at drum and rotary heads and both have their place and deliver a different product.  Larger material almost always requires a drum mulcher.  The heads can be found on excavators and CTL type units and some manufacturers sell an integrated unit that is even more capable (but for a much higher price)

[mike_belben]

Some pictures of your site would help a lot.  Is it steep and rocky?  If not, a big part of me wants to suggest a crawler loader with 4 in 1 drott bucket for stumping the bulk of your smaller stuff.  They are rarely the sharpest tool in the shed and are very clumsy/slow compared to a bobcat but on the right job and with a good operator they can do a lot of work for small amount of money.

You can find a pretty big drott under 10k and they can curl out impressive trees, load stumps or dig holes to bury them, etc.  Weld a few hooks on the bucket and you can skid your few sawlogs out backward, theyll do whole tree.   I wouldnt have one without the clamshell bucket though unless all it did was load a truck.

Id think with one good tool for roughing it in you could tidy the rest up with your current equipment quite well and without a lot of cash

[Iwawoodwork]

With the acreage you have to work on I would purchase a used excavator in the 40 thousand lb. area. like a Hitachi 120-150 cat 225 etc. they can remove the large stumps easily plus dig and grade hard rocky ground, and quickly load your dump truck and with a thumb  load the logs in the dump.  I own two smaller excavators (about 17000 lbs.) and it  is time consuming to remove Juniper or fir stumps the size you are looking at, they are just to light.  The 30M to 40M lb. machines can probably push over (directional ) many if not all of the size trees you tell about, I built logging roads in the Oregon Cascades with D8 cat dozers and after using my excavators can say that for the most versatile all around machine in my opinion, get an excavator with a thumb.

[Stuart Caruk]

Go rent a Kobelco Blade Runner. An excavator with a 6way blade, and it's super handy for building roads, and clearing stumps. I've got a mulching head for mine and I'll never use a chipper again. You should be able to rent one for under $3k a week.

[snowkraft]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm in the process of contacting people w/forestry tillers for bids. If they are too expensive, (more than, say, $5,000, for the job) I'll dig around tree and knock over.

Looking at getting a Woodman ATV cart. https://woodlandmills.ca/us/product/woodland-trailer/  If anyone knows of something better, please let me know.

I took fotos of my property- you can see them OFFSITE IMAGES NOOT ALLOWED  **Can anyone tell me if I can sell my ash logs for wood based on the condition in fotos??

[snowkraft]

Oh, and I think a 40K pound excavator is just about right. I did use a Cat 320 to pluck stumps and that went OK. It was just a bit big. I have not used bulldozers, so won't go that route. I DO have a 13,000lb skidsteer, a Gehl 7810 with solid wheels and trax- that is fairly heavy for pushing, altho I don't have a blade. They are super expensive. Suppose i could try renting one.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Doubt you will find many mills that will buy those ash logs. But it makes good firewood if nothing else.

[Ron Scott]

Ditto to the above on marketing the ash logs.

[ChugiakTinkerer]

That Woodland Mills trailer looks pretty useful.  Cabelas has a King Kutter trailer with 1.5 ton capacity, but it doesn't convert to a log hauler.  if you are planning on hauling with an ATV you won't be able to stop with that kind of weight.  So the King Kutter has electric brakes.

[snowkraft]

Unfortunate that seems I cannot use ash for lumber. Here is an excavator I found- close, looks well maintained, and a good price (It is the Deere):

http://www.dbequip.com/inv.htm?http://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/construction-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1031?etid=1&pcid=2817208&dlr=1

I found a wagon that is quite a bit cheaper, altho of course has no dump:  http://www.koryfarm.com/products/home-hobby/model-3000.php   --I have a UTV with trax that will haul the wagon well.


---I will add uprights similar to this

[woodmaker]

 My initial reaction is to advise you to buy a 200 size excavator .You can push over any tree in the size you have discussed,in any direction you wish. I very rarely pick up a chainsaw until the tree is already on the ground.Buy a machine with a hydraulic thumb;it seems a mechanical thumb is always open when you need it closed,and closed when you need it open.
As much as I love my sk200,you will be hard pressed to use it effectively in a 14 ' wide area.the tracks are 10.5 ' wide,so you really have no room to swing the house.
Because of the above problem ,I would advise a 120-150 size machine(24000 to 30000 lbs.) You probably will have to pay more for the smaller machine(more people have 20 ton trailers than tractor trailers,so there is more demand for smaller machines) . The little machines will beat you to death ,where a larger ,heavier machine is more stable.

[snowkraft]

Aaaaah, that is why bigger excavators are cheaper than you would anticipate. I could not figure that out. I thought that possibly that had to do with lingering effects of the recession, although I bet that is maybe also part of it.

I am going to look this week at these 2 excavators, both at the same business. The Hitachi is getting out of my price range, but it does look like a nice excavator and is only 9'8" wide, altho does not have reduced TS, which I think would be good for me in the woods.

1.Deere:   http://www.dbequip.com/inv.htm?http://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/construction-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1031?etid=1&pcid=2817208&dlr=1
2. Hitachi: http://www.dbequip.com/inv.htm?http://www.machinerytrader.com/listings/construction-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1031?etid=1&pcid=2817208&dlr=1

I am planning on a hydraulic thumb. I had one on a rented 50,000 Komatsu and worked so well I would not get an excavator w/o one. The Deere does NOT have an optional blade, which is unfortunate, but there is one in Michigan that has one.

I was surprised how easily the 50,000 Kubota would lift up. Yes, I have a Kubota U17 4,000 machine for making mountain bike single track, and my back is always a bit sore after using that. I need to get a better seat for that.