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Winching. Gently removing logs from the forest Log removal has the biggest impact in forestry and we are trying to change that. Selective logging, more so than in clear cutting, has been criticized by all sides for requiring dense road systems. We are placing a majority of our effort into eliminating the need for any roads in selection logging. In 1996 Jerel
fabricated our own winch out of used pieces of machinery from the
junk yard, for $200. Comparable winches on the market ran $20,000,
with a few bells and whistles, like remote control radios. Jerel’s
machine mounted on a sled bottom, slides over the forest floor pulling
itself into position in the forest, by winding up its spool of steel
cable. It weighs about With the winch and logs on sleds, we meet our objective of moving logs out of the forest without roads, meeting the needs of the forest first, in how we meet our own. Added, is by not building a road, our costs are greatly decreased. The winch, if adapted to people’s varying applications, could disprove the reputation that selective logging has to have roads at denser rates than clear cutting. The pathways over which we winched sled-loads of logs, 18 months later were imperceptible because ground cover flourished. I would mislead you to say using our winch on sleds is “a walk in the park”, compared to the comfort of driving skidders on the soil right up to each tree, or even winching from heavy equipment staged on roads. However we have some improvements to it, in mind, for the next one. But winching will always have the challenge in patience and developing new skills because unlike clear cutting, there is an obstacle course of trees to negotiate. Here is the short version for the folks who will never be doing it themselves, and the long version of our methods for the woodland owner eager to do ecological extraction in their forest. Our conclusion is it’s more labor than skidders, horses or tractors, but it avoids the costs of heavy equipment and roads, the soil isn’t compacted and it provides a network of paths for future extraction, which will never have to be figured out again. Short Version
What worked and what didn’t This report focuses on the first outcome of our ecoforestry test applied to log removal. Getting logs out with a winch instead of heavy equipment and roads can be either a pleasure or a pain, depending on how able humans are at mastering impatience and developing new skills. Our aim is to lead others to the joyful outcome, while leaving no glossed over picture about the playing field of ecological log extraction in a standing forest. Forget the level playing field. Standing trees, shrubs, big rotting logs and uneven terrain suddenly become your foe, when to this point you have been “cultivating” these characteristics. Not only are they in your way, but they must be protected. We found that winching as a pair or solo uses the same amount of time per person. Working alone dispelled the assumption that one person needs a remote control winch. With or without remote , during a run, one person still has to make the same number of trips between the winch and the load. When working in pairs, these trips are not eliminated. The person carrying the cable out to the new logs also has to walk back to the winch with the full load being pulled, so that they can return with the carhood to the woods for the next load. Preparing the Forest Paths for Winching While not a must, lack of route preparation sometimes can make winching a nightmare. To make winching smooth, we found we needed to asses and mark out potential bee-line routes among ecoforest obstacles first, before starting in a new location. Tying up flagging ribbon kept us on track when marking out straight lines through the brush, leading from the downed logs to the winch. We trimmed obstructive vegetation along corridors whenever necessary and noticed that it quickly grew back. Light modification with the loppers prevented winched logs from hanging up on vegetation, stalling-out our 3 horsepower engined winch, or else severly damaging plants. For the cable-pulled load, paths must be flat in their orientation to the winch. We flattened out paths by hand, dunging humps and filling in dips with forest debris. A path can go downhill, uphill, or across the face of a hill if the path is flat. In the case of the face of the slope if there is a naturally-occurring flat shelf. Any interruptions in the shelf will sabotage the run. Standing trees become makeshift retaining walls of horizontally laid logs to accomplish a shelf where none exists, and forest debris can be used to fill up the downhill slope of your fabricated shelf. With ecoforestry, retained trees can obstruct many possible “straight shots” for pulling logs, with the cable, to the winch. If trees aren’t directly in the center of the path, deflectors can be placed against them to get the load around them. Deflectors can be anything laying around such as a downed tree, especially with a root sticking out, just the right way, or another VW bug car hood. The loaded hood of logs will bump into the deflector as it is going in a straight line to the winch. In the case of the deflector log and root, it will sart riding up on the log, hit the root and momentarily be thrown out of line, making it miss the tree you are protecting. When the load clears the deflecting obstacle, it straightens back into line with the winch, and continues on. Trees that are slightly in the way so that the load will scrape them going by can be protected by making a buffer around them with limbs removed from harvested trees. Plan to work in the forest in winter when tree dormancy keeps the sap in tree roots. Tree bark won’t sustain injury if hit. Getting the logs ready to winch The hardest part of winching logs are: getting them into position for the winch cable, unloading them at the other end, and stacking. This requires moving logs, many times one’s weight, by hand. To do this safely, we employed levers, gravity and the principle of the wheel on this part of our project. Narrow poles and round logs, abundant in nature, provided the very levers and wheels needed. A word of caution when working in a young forest, such as our’s . Ecologically selected logs from a 60 year old forest are small enough to raise the question: do we move the logs manually or use the tools? First, remember human nature. When working with a partner stronger than oneself, one can often get the pair in trouble by taking on logs that are too heavy for them to handle. Injury can result. Second, even if logs are small enough to lift, it pays to learn early on the dynamics of log moving with tools, while the logs are still light. The bigger logs of the next harvest will require tools, and the learning won’t be as safe. Experienced loggers and chocker (cable) setters are also invaluable sources to tap. If you can afford it, the Forestry Training Center in Forks, Washington (360-374-2550) offers a course on wood handling and falling for $2,447. The class is mostly on directional falling techniques, however. Moving Logs with Physics, Poles and Wheels I’ll try to explain some basics we discovered. Moving logs with a lever is most effective when a dip in the ground exists somewhere under part of the log. Put your pole under the log there and push it through to the other side as far as you can, and pry up. The further a pole can be slid under a log, the farther distance it will move. This moves a log side wise. If you need to move a log in its long-wise direction, change it’s direction by rolling one end around with a lever. Then hand roll it or lever it forward. If trees are in the way so that its direction can’t be changed, move it length wise by levering up an end and slipping a round piece under the end at a 90 degree angle. Push the log by hand or with a lever from the other end, so the piece underneath rolls like a wheel, moving the upper log forward. A log underneath one you are trying to move can act as a fulcrum whereby you can balance your log on it and swing it around. With a block and tackle set up, attached to both your log and a nearby tree, you can effortlessly jockey a log into place. Use this tool to move the winch sideways into a new winching position, if it’s weight outnumbers yours. The block and tackle length can be extended to anchor trees out of reach, by having a spare long cable on hand. When the cable is too long it can be shortened by wrapping it around a tree or wrapping it around a whole lot of trees. Winching in General With no roads, of course, winching covers distances many times the length of the winch’s cable. We proceeded by winching out whole sections of forest, as far as we could go, without moving the winch. Each hoodfull of logs was unloaded and piled neatly off to both sides of the winch, in manageable size stacks. After the last load was picked up, we figured out the next anchor tree for the winch and the beeline to it. When the path had been prepared, we unbuckled the strapping, anchoring the winch to its tree, turned it in the direction of the next area and, if the terrain it had to cross was rough, put a car hood under the winch. Then the cable was unwound off the winch spool and stretched to the new anchor tree. The new anchor trees were ones located on the far side of the new forest section, across from the finished section. For a holdfast for the cable on the anchor tree, we used an Army belt. Buckled around a tree, the canvas belt protects the bark. The cable hook is then attached to the belt. With all this in place, the winch engine is started up and now being unattached itself, moves through the woods by winding the cable back up on its spool. Once to the tree it is stopped, unhooked, turned around into position and tied down to the tree with canvas tie down straps. We began winching in the new area, moving out and stacking up all the cut trees. This cleared the stage for going back for logs left behind, waiting in stacks in the old area, and pulling them across the new picked-up area. These old piles had been placed in the direction where this new winch anchor point would be, so not much handling was needed to position them for pick-up. Winching fell into the pattern of taking logs closest to the winch first to clear the way for logs further and further back. The goal point you are winching toward is whichever comes first, a roadway, or a portable mill site. If winching is toward a road, once the road is reached it will become the travel corridor for pulling logs. Any equipment you’ve got, from a tractor to a pickup, can take the place of the winch, now. Once on a road, load moving is a lot easier because of the vehicle. Out of the forest you are off the fragile forest floor and so it’s O.K. to use a rig. As you can see, you don’t need roads. If you have roads, they are nice supplements to winching. When pulling logs down the road, for less wear and tear, suspend the logs if your vehicle can do that or use carhoods to protect the road. We invested in the largest car hood we could find at the junk yard, for this, instead of using the light VW hoods we use by hand, in the woods. The truck can pull more behind it and the weight of the hood is negligible. Special Winching Techniques A tree, felled down-slope, can be winched uphill, turned onto the cross slope path and into the winch , in one uninterrupted run. Needed is a standing tree upslope from the cut tree and along the downhill side of the cross slope path. It is used as a cornering pivot for the cable, in line with the winch. Buffer the pivot tree with another car hood. Picture your tree laying pointing downhill and cut into log lengths. Winching one at a time, start with the lowest log, downslope. Pull the cable out from the winch straight to the pivot tree. Go around the uphill side of the tree, laying the cable against the shield of the placed hood. Make the corner, and drop down to the lowest log with the cable. Put a hood under the uphill end of the log. Going through the hole in the hood with the cable, connect the cable around the log and cinch it tight. Position the uphill ends of all log pieces above your log, towards the pivot tree. Move them by rolling them sideways until achieving an arched line toward the pivot point. Lay the cable taut along the uphill side of the arching curve, so it acts as a tracking guide. Go back to the winch and pull the log in. For the next log, start with the next furthest down the hill. Reposition the guide logs because they will have moved. Repeat process. Tools and other Necessities More than one car hood is part of our suggested basic tool list for winching. They provide storage shelters so tools can be kept out in the woods, buffer pivot trees and cover the winch, overnight. Large lopper pruners are used for making winch paths high enough through shrubbery to get your body through for setting up the cable and wide enough for the load to go through. A large pick works for leveling paths side to side, smoothing out high spots, or making a path through a big dead down log. Usually the log loaded VW hood will jump all these obstacles. You get to the point of recognizing circumstances that change that. When the load won’t clear them, the run is thwarted and the hang-up has to be untangled. Carry water because you will be sweating and dehydration drains needed stamina. Carry hair bands to keep hair from blowing in your face. Wear leather gloves with intact finger tips. Safety proof equipment by duct taping over any sharp edges. Our operation stalled 6 weeks while a sliced finger tip had to heal due to fingerless gloves and a sharp edge. Have chain saw and safety glasses on hand for clearing stumps, etc. in the winch path. Have winch and saw gas, bar oil and a screw driver for adjustments. Another Strategy Found to Avoid Winching Logs When everything was winched, and after we’d built a mill and milled all our logs, we found a new, reasonably priced tool on the market with potential to by-pass winching logs. It is a mill called the “RipSaw”, and light enough for one person to carry into the woods and up to each cut tree! We bought one new, for about $3,000 and tested it out. It has these problems; setting up the log for milling is time consuming, the band saw blade breaks easily unless you are perfectly set up, and the saw engine off-gases strong fumes next to the operator. The upside is for the small land owner with not far to carry, boards, which could be hand carried out of the forest to their destination. I see it as a solution for my own gender’s problem as when challenged to manage a forest without a handy machine fabricator and muscle man, around. Like I have. The RipSaw is operatable by any stature of person capable of moving heavy loads. It is also a solution for a landowner who wants to do something with downed trees from a Columbus Day-type storm. For the larger land owner, with greater distances, the winch would come in as a carrier for hauling out loads of stacked lumber, if they want to forgo road building in their forest. The RipSaw contact number is Better Built Corporation/ 508-657-5636 / 789 Woburn Street/ Wilmington Massachusetts 01887 Call them and they can connect you up with a local dealer in your area so you can try the saw out, yourself. |
