When Loggers Climbed Trees

Don't forget Finley Hayes. He was climbing, topping and rigging spar poles even before Hap Johnson. And Finley wrote a ton of greats stories about his tenure in the woods, too. Remember the 'Rigging Shack" The title of Finley's column in Loggers World.

Man, that an excellent idea, Chris. I can relate to the difficulty of finding time to set down and write, when you're working full time. It is difficult to manage.
 
I'm curious whatever happened to Stephens 'sticker shock' trees?

Friendly competition got the bid. He has a logging out fit that has a skidder, dozer, mill and a way to get them there. Has a bucket truck.
They pretty much did what i would do, but his buddy took the wood and he has a big enough chipper.
Now, when the crack down started on the lumber, his buddy and him got harassed and almost got fined. No permits on the logs.
Looking back, no loss. Would have been a pain and a hassle. Better fruit to be had.
 
Yup. Just saw that outfits owners at the fair. They under bid me on one recent and are wishing they had not :lol:
Happens a lot these days. So many new start ups with the tree mortality that they are hungry and slashing rates to keep working. See how many hold out much longer.
 
If its no clean-up. being the low bid can be fine, if you smash it out in a way others can't, like if one could dump a tree that everyone else wanted to limbs some, climb to put in a pull line, etc, etc.
 
I just got bumped off a job by... ' got a friend who will do it'....it's a fine pruning type job, wonder if the friend is an arborist?bit disappointing, but hey maybe they got sticker shock. Hope the trees survive.
 
That's what made my market so easy for me. Everyone else was handbombing and I was running a mini-skid steer. Often I could be low bid and still make off like a bandit just due to picking up 400-500pd hunks of wood effortlessly.
 
I think what killed the profit that outfit also on that particular job was chipping and firwood sized stuff he had to haul out. I also think his skid steer broke. Labor went high.
 
I always look for a competitive advantage, and it always seems to be changing....

That said.. good equipment and skills complement each other well. Not too many people around here know how to cut a proper notch and backcut.. that may be changing, but for years NO ONE knew... as crazy as that sounds...
 
I often tell people anything is possible, it's just a matter of logistics...then the next question usually is, what's your budget.
 
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Thanks for that, Chris.

My pleasure guys/gals. Enjoy. Great stuff on that DVD.

That's awesome, but didn't Jerry already do this?

Yes he did. But what I am looking to do is focus on 1-2 old time high climbers from the 1950-1960's, with a focus on their daily life as both climbers and loggers. It is extremely hard to gather enough material on them to print a biography of their lives. That is why I am thinking that a novel may be the way to go.

I can NOT even put myself in the same category as our friend Gerry B when it comes to writing, but I have published a number of articles in TCIA Mag and I do have a natural propensity towards writing and would really love to provide our industry with more stories.
 
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