Alaskan Logging Equipment, Left to Rust

[Contract Logger]

Whitestone trucks continued. These trucks run OK, there just isnt any work.

 

[Contract Logger]

Whitestone. This is on Chichagof Island, Southeast Alaska.

 

[Contract Logger]

More Whitestone.

 

[Contract Logger]

Equipment near Ketchikan. Link-Belt 5800 roadbuilder with Jewell clamshell bucket, and Mack DM600 and DM800 rock trucks.

 

[Contract Logger]

Machinery at Ketchikan. Link-Belt excavators, Skagit 739 yarder, and the barge used to move it all around. The floating logging camp is visible on the other side of the bay, above the yarder in the second to the last pic.

 

[Contract Logger]

Detail shots of the Skagit 739 yarder with 110' tower.

 

[Contract Logger]

Giant Kenworth truck and 16-wheel 150-Ton lowbed trailer. Used to belong to Ketchikan Pulp Co, now a local contractor owns but rarely uses it. Ketchikan area, same location as above equipment. This thing is a monster.

 

[Contract Logger]

More Ketchikan Alaska Kenworth trucks.

 

[Contract Logger]

Koehring 405 Shovel with a Skagit SJ4 Heel Boom? A new one on me, but great looking combination. The landowner says this machine was abanodoned here, and he said 'if you haul it you can have it!' He started the machine for me, and other than a hole in the main air tank, it looked OK. I dont need it, and its still there. Has been there 10 years that I know of, he keeps having to move it.

 

[JTL]

I was thinking about you Logger as I watched an episode of Tougher in Alaska tonight on the History Channel. I hadn't seen that episode before. It was filmed in June of 08 and some of the iron you have posted pics of looked familiar.
They were on three different jobs. One with Alcan-building road and yarding with a big Skagit tower. Another at the Pacific Log & Lumber mill, and out in the brush with one of their cutters who lived on a float camp. And the other with Columbia Helicopters, landing their logs on a barge.
Pretty good show really. Glad I watched it!

 

[Contract Logger]

Thats a good episode. Some friends of mine have been featured on that show, all over this great state. The host always annoyed me though. The Skagit 739 in this thread IS that same machine- at Alcan. They but Tribal and State wood when they can, but nothing right now at all, lots of parked iron. Most of what they do is export to Asia- they avoid the Forest Service wood altogether, as you cant sell it. Pacific Log and Lumber closed last year. Columbia Helicoters has laid off 400 people in the last 18 months. Sad state of affairs right now.

 

[Contract Logger]

Silver Bay dump trucks, parked at the old mill in Wrangell, 2005.

 

[Contract Logger]

More Silver Bay Logging dump trucks.

 

[Contract Logger]

Few more SBL dumps. couple in the pit across the road from the mill there in Wrangell.

 

[Contract Logger]

More SBL millyard. Some of the boxes are big for hauling bark, wood chunks, and chip debris out of the mill. Others just dont survive on the job....

 

[Contract Logger]

Silver Bay Wrangell 2005.

 

[Dwan Hall]

I had one of the Silver Bay trucks here in Juneau for a summer. Used it to help build a road out to my property. Couldn't say which on it was but looked a lot like #22 there. I think Brian Martin had it then.
Most of Tonsgards road building equipment left town on his barge last month. Not sure ware he was taken it. His 10 and 20 dump trucks are all lined up in his lot here and most haven't moved for over 6 months. Sure would help if the Gov would release the funs for the road out of Juneau. At least there would be an influx of 1/2 billion federal dollars into south east. The Kensington has geared up to open this spring offering around 300 directly related jobs. Now that the *itch is out of office we all have a better chance of seeing movement in the construction industry rather then more studies. I think it will take a few more years to stop this downward spiral and maybe start a clime out of trying to keep Alaska from becoming a National park.

 

[Contract Logger]

Trucks at the mill on a nicer day.

 

[Contract Logger]

I had one of the Silver Bay trucks here in Juneau for a summer. Used it to help build a road out to my property. Couldn't say which on it was but looked a lot like #22 there. I think Brian Martin had it then.
Most of Tonsgards road building equipment left town on his barge last month. Not sure ware he was taken it. His 10 and 20 dump trucks are all lined up in his lot here and most haven't moved for over 6 months. Sure would help if the Gov would release the funs for the road out of Juneau. At least there would be an influx of 1/2 billion federal dollars into south east. The Kensington has geared up to open this spring offering around 300 directly related jobs. Now that the *itch is out of office we all have a better chance of seeing movement in the construction industry rather then more studies. I think it will take a few more years to stop this downward spiral and maybe start a clime out of trying to keep Alaska from becoming a National park.

Channel just finished a huge job in Metlakatla, and is working in Ketchikan now. They got the big Hoonah job going right now and its going really well for them, and they are getting geared up for the Sitka Breakwater work they were awarded in December. The highway trucks were all supposed to be working for Secon at Yakutat, but the job is screwed up and may not even go. Roger Schnabel at Haines says he has more work on the books for 2010 than he has done in the last 3 years combined. John McGraw got the Sitka sewer job today, and there is over 50 million in Southeast DOT work coming down the pike in the next 3 months, according to DOT's website- check out the Tentative Advertising List at DOT Southeast. The construction group between Ktn, Sitka and Juneau all ahve more work than they can do...... its the loggers that are starving right now.

And everything you said is correct- a road out of Juneau would be amazing!

 

[Contract Logger]

Some Silver Bay Kenworth C500 highway loggers.