Flying Cats and Git’n ‘er Done
Note from bear bait:
Hi… so my kid the logger calls me and tells me to go to utube and google up “logging” and then add “flying cats” [here]. Which is video of Dahlgren, a logging outfit from either Forks or Port Angeles, and it shows them with their big Berger tower skylining three cats to the ass end of this job to cat log and the big Bowman carriage is flying damn near log loads to the landing so frigging far away as to be in a different area code. Blew my mind.
The tail tree has 9 guylines. I have no idea what they are tailholded to. But they have a harness and strap rig they hook up to these hi-drive D-5 and D-6D tractors and fly them almost a mile to a cold decking landing. With three cats feeding it, you have to know a shit load of wood is being flown across a critical stream and buffer to a landing far, far away.
My son first saw this Dahlgren outfit salvaging Mt. St. Helens wood in 1981. He was with me when we came around a corner in the blast zone, south of the North Fork Toutle, and here is a Cat 245!!! with a shovel front, the jib up in the air, monster grapples, and the heel rack has a D-6 blade pinned to it and the loader is blading debris off the road. Bigger than anything I had ever seen. I had never seen a 245 Cat with a log loader. Lots of big old 235s and 225s, but never a 245. Add to that the biggest Berger tower I had ever seen. A slacker and HUGE… the baloney was about 2″ and they were out a country mile. Massive equipment.
So here it is 2007 and they are still logging, still finding ways to guy that big machinery and log across whole drainages. Mind boggling.
I am, always have been, and always will be amazed at the ingenuity and craft of good logging. “Git ‘er done.” Wow. — bear bait.
