Once trees fall, they're hard to get back up

Sometimes I feel like I should name a log and keep track of where it goes in the house, so I can tell the story of harvesting it.

<<This photo: The last of 16 logs parked at the edge of the canyon.

We found about 16 excellent house logs in a dense stand of fir on the very steep east wall of a ravine we call "the canyon." I cut them, sometimes perched on the most tenuous footholds in the dirt while I sawed. Climbing up out of the canyon with a chainsaw was a workout. The next chore was to get the logs out of the canyon and onto flat ground. This was not so easy, either.

Imagine a beautiful August day, sun, a slight breeze. In most cases, the log's butt is on one side of the ravine, and the top is on the other, spanning the gap like a footbridge. At mid-span the log is 10-20' off the ground.

150' of winch cable barely reaches the first log we try to pull. Sitting on the tractor looking down over the edge, my partner can't see me or the log. With 2-way radios we signal when it's safe for her to pull with the winch, or for me to re-approach the log to see why the winch doesn't budge it. Our efforts merely pull the 3,000+ lb tractor closer to the edge of the brushy abyss. We try creating a block and tackle with one block, then two, then three. We get nowhere, and finally go elsewhere on the property to skid some easier logs, rather than make the day a complete loss.

There were 16 straight, sturdy logs on the ground down there, and we were determined to get them. Times like this call for heavier equipment. Our neighbor happens to have some.

Enter the 1950's-era Caterpillar D-2 with double winches. Apparently this is a real novelty -- what's even more novel is that it still runs -- and within a few days we had it parked on the rim of the canyon. For safety, it was chained to a second Caterpillar. When this much diesel smoke is flying, heavy things tend to get moving.

Heavy things did indeed move -- the two Cats were dragged to the edge, while the log sat stationary. I cut the top 20-30' off the tree. With both winches pulling, and an hour of trial and error, the first log finally made the trip to the top. 15 to go. All had to be topped in the canyon.

<< This photo: Caterpillar D-2 with double winches. Some trees took both winches, often pulling from different angles, to recover.

In the first day we got 6 logs, and things started going much better. The second day we got another 6. The third day we got the remaining 4. It was a marvelous thing, to stand by and watch a 60-80' log make the trip to the top in under a minute. It was like watching a train go by.

Each log we winched individually to the edge, then hooked to the larger Cat and dragged it onto the level deck. Once on deck, we manufactured each log -- cut off the limbs and stubs of broken limbs, cut off any swollen butts or "pistol butts," cut off sections with extreme sweep. We sometimes cut long logs into manageable lengths. One log was 74' long, longer than the house, and that log made a 42' and a 32'. Then we dragged them behind the tractor to the house-log deck, where they will stay until the sawmill arrives.

Thank goodness our neighbor had the equipment, and was willing to devote the time to help us get these logs out of the canyon! It was another of those episodes that make this project the experience of a lifetime for us.