Small-Scale Logging: Moving Slash

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We're logging hilly terrain, where level landing space is scarce. We winch logs out of the woods using a small tractor and a logging winch blade. We prefer to bring them out with the limbs and tops -- guts feathers and all, as they say.

We skid a few at a time to the landing. Then we limb them on the landing before we buck and deck them.

That process creates a big slash pile in a hurry, and that takes up space and makes it hard to maneuver equipment the way we need to.

So we started piling slash in a small utility trailer, and hauling it to another, unused landing, where we can burn it this winter.

Now, it's enough work to hand-pile slash into a trailer. We didn't cherish the idea of unloading it by hand.

So we came up with this idea. (Look under your trailer before you try this at home; see note below.)

Over time we'll have to develop a better, safer technique, but this is how we did it the first time:

Hook one log fork under the hitch, lift the front enf off the ground, and make a dump truck bed out of the trailer. The slash slides right out onto the ground, in a perfect 4 by 8 foot pile, ready to burn. Note the wheels of the trailer come completely off the ground, which is necessary to get the slash to slide.

One problem is the trailer's tendency to jump off the fork and roll away (possibly a later video?). We started hooking through the hitch's safety chains for better control.

The trailer is a light-duty snowmobile trailer with a tilt bed. However the bed doesn't tilt far enough to dump the contents. The design of the trailer is such that the rear underside can touch the ground without breaking or bending anything.

Please be careful. This is definitely not an OSHA-approved maneuver.