This week - CHAINSAWS ! ! We travelled to Glenwood WA to do a thinning project for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. The site was a natural protected reserve type place surrounding a wetland. Apparently, for the last 10 years this wetland has been home to two cranes. Sadly they have never been able to successfully raise any young due to predators and such. It was our task to continue the work that another WCC crew started, which was basically thinning out the trees immediately surrounding the wetland. The hope was to increase visibility for the cranes.
So by midmorning on Tuesday, our crew and Ernest Farmer's Ellensburg crew arrived at the site where we met Tony Sachet, Natural Areas Manager (Southeast Region). Tony showed us around and described what was going on. To get to our first spot, we had to trek a bit down a trail that skirted the wetland. Then the chainsawing began! We started off with several people sawing and the rest of us swamping. The rules were : 8 inch diameter trees or less, leave 15 feet between trees, and piles could be any height and not too wide. There was quite a bit to cut and our stacks got pretty big. By the end of the day, both crews had figured out the best way to get things done.
Wednesday we went back to the same side of the wetland, but we started further up the trail. We would cut and leap frog along the trail with the other crew. Everything went pretty smoothly.
Thursday we started at the same spot, but at the beginning of the trail. There was a huge area that had been cut and not piled, so both crews stormed the area and got it all cleaned up. Then we got to move to the other side of the wetland and really get into some good cutting. First we got a kind of educational experience and learned a bit about the old homestead located next to the wetland. I loved hearing the pioneer stories that Tony told about the people who lived there. After the homestead tour, we got back to cutting. It was so thick in that stand of pines! They were all super tall, but many of them were really skinny. We worked it so that there were 3 sawyers and 3 swampers.
The swampers would go from one sawyers area where he would shut down, allowing them to pile everything up and get the area clean. Then they would move on to the next sawyer. There were so many trees ! A sawyer could work his butt off all day and barely move down the line.
And, if you weren't careful enough, you could get eaten by a pile . . .
The swampers would go from one sawyers area where he would shut down, allowing them to pile everything up and get the area clean. Then they would move on to the next sawyer. There were so many trees ! A sawyer could work his butt off all day and barely move down the line.
And, if you weren't careful enough, you could get eaten by a pile . . .
Our fearless leader Mike started falling the trees in a way that made it easy to swamp, which ended up turning the piles into more of a wall . . .
By Friday, the wall turned into more like the Great Wall of Glenwood . . . It was massive ! ! I believe the measurements were around 216 feet long and at least 6.5 feet high. It was epic!
We stayed at that stand of trees til the afternoon when we had to pack up our stuff and hit the road. This was an AWESOME spike !
We stayed in the Mt. Adams Lodge at the Flying L Ranch in Glenwood. It was beautiful there ! The rooms had fireplaces and the rec cabin was huge ! There was a kitchen in the rec cabin where we could prepare lunch and dinner. The people who ran the place would make us breakfast every morning, though. They made a great breakfast !
Or just enjoyed the warmth of the fire . . .
Or did chainsaw maintenance . . .
There were a lot of gorgeous sights up there.
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