Well said roadrunner. I can't begin to say how much I have learned about real yarder logging, the men and women involved, and the histroy behind the great machine manufactuares. Not to mention the tragic sides as well.
I was the ripe old age of 6, on a farm in Indiana when St. Helens blew its lid. Mom moved us to Idaho when I was 11 or 12. I remember seeing the log trucks rolling through town with 3 to 6 logs on them and thinking to myself- AWESOME! Thats what I wanna do when I grow up! We had a neighbor that was a logger. He got us all our firewood the first year we lived in Idaho. I used to go with him and set the chokers to drag the over abundant buckskin larch trees up into the road, then try to split and then load up his old flat bed Ford with about 2 cords of wood. He would even let me run the old 540 JD skidder they had, and tought me how to fall a tree. Good times.
As I entered high school, my best of friends all had dad's who were (are still) loggers. Apon graduating, thats the route I went. Sawing landing on a tractor crew. There never was much for yarders in my neck of the woods. I worked as chaser under a couple 98 Link Belts, but never down in the brush. Did that for a couple years then the chance to operate a scraper on a highway job presented its self. 3 years of that and I was back in the woods, this time as an owner operator with a damn good friend from high school. A year later we were broke, I worked for a couple more seasons off and on logging and building log roads. Got a job offer on a rock crusher. Did that for a while, then got back into the dirt moving game.
I miss the heck out of the woods, and have a boat load of friends that are still eeking out a living that way. They always say they would love to have a job like mine, and always say I would love to have a job like theirs. Only wish there was money in logging these days, cause thats where I'd be.
This site has made me wish we had moved a few hundrend miles further west then we did. Thanks to all you guys for posting your thousands of pictures and telling your awesome stories!
