Logging Equipment- Dead at Mt. St. Helens!

callingtheshop · Apr 16, 2014

I've always been fascinated with St. Helens and went there in approximately 1986 and flew over it once as well.
I had no idea how much equipment was there and still is.
It's on my bucket list to go there once more to see the difference, if I can remember it enough.
Thanks for posting all the photos and all the comments, I devoured it all!

akroadrunner · Feb 15, 2015

Haven't checked in for a while. Looked at all the pics again, but didn't read most of the comments. Tears flowed again. Read some of my own comments, and thought I would say here that my brother Paul who I mentioned here, is no longer with us. Another old growth logger and man among men has gone to be with his Lord. Almost exactly 2 years ago today. I miss him greatly, and think of him every day. They hardly make men like him anymore.

Desertwheeler · Feb 15, 2015

Wow this was an incredible read! So sad about the lives lost and the equipment too. I bet nowadays salvage would be almost impossible as they would close everything down to preserve the environment.

JimInOz · Oct 12, 2019

I just re-read this thread. Thanks to all who posted pictures & info...very interesting.

petepilot · Nov 27, 2019

JimInOz said:
I just re-read this thread. Thanks to all who posted pictures & info...very interesting.

quite a read . i was in tacoma wa.when all this was about to go. i left there just 3 days before st. helens went up. best pics. I have seen . thanks to all who posted

Mother Deuce · Nov 28, 2019

I have a box of slides of the Windy Ridge area of the blast zone in late 80 or early 81. We moved a hand from Sedro out of there. He went in after the Governor opened the red zone to forestry salvage. It was and remains one of the saddest jobs I have ever done. We met the logger and followed his crummy in to what was I believed, what a nuclear strike aftermath looked like. We crossed bridges that were shattered but standing and yet deemed useable at the time. We ended up either at Windy Ridge or a little east. He had been logging with an old Skagit SJ5 on rubber and a Prentice loader on a skid steer carriage and a skidder. When we reached the landing. We were looking into the muzzle of the largest implement of destruction, I have ever seen. Spirit Lake was a steaming morass of floating logs. With the trucks shutdown the quiet was deafening. There was not a sound, no insects no nothing... save for the mountain that was cracking and spitting Volkswagon sized rocks as it worked on it's dome building. The ground was like walking on concrete, you barely left a boot print in it. The logger whose name I have forgotten was surrendering his iron to the finance company. With so much wood down I had to ask, what led to this? He reached down and picked what was left of a saw blade off the ground. It was just a pile of segments as the rivet heads had been ground off by the ash. The ash and blast which he said had blown ash into the wood fibre of the trees made them extremely difficult to harvest. He was one of best guy's I ever made a move for. He moved the old Skagit out to the truck. I joined him as I was going to have to unload it and he showed me what I needed to know. We couldn't get the boom/ tower down. The winch was not going to work. The loader and the skidder went on with out issue. Several hours later a guy coming by in a Weyco service truck took pity on all of us and mickey moused it to lower it. Might still be up there if it hadn't been for him. I apologized to the logger as we were leaving with his iron, he shook hands with me and said not to worry about it. It was just as well and was always a next time... I have these images stored still on Kodachrome slides. They are mostly scenery shots as I was so amazed by what I was seeing. By the time we got the Skagit down and road ready I had determined that I hated the thing and I don't think I have an image of it. I will take the slides in and get them converted. It will probably take a couple weeks. I will post them here.

colson04 · Nov 28, 2019

Mother Deuce said:
I have a box of slides of the Windy Ridge area of the blast zone in late 80 or early 81. We moved a hand from Sedro out of there. He went in after the Governor opened the red zone to forestry salvage. It was and remains one of the saddest jobs I have ever done. We met the logger and followed his crummy in to what was I believed, what a nuclear strike aftermath looked like. We crossed bridges that were shattered but standing and yet deemed useable at the time. We ended up either at Windy Ridge or a little east. He had been logging with an old Skagit SJ5 on rubber and a Prentice loader on a skid steer carriage and a skidder. When we reached the landing. We were looking into the muzzle of the largest implement of destruction, I have ever seen. Spirit Lake was a steaming morass of floating logs. With the trucks shutdown the quiet was deafening. There was not a sound, no insects no nothing... save for the mountain that was cracking and spitting Volkswagon sized rocks as it worked on it's dome building. The ground was like walking on concrete, you barely left a boot print in it. The logger whose name I have forgotten was surrendering his iron to the finance company. With so much wood down I had to ask, what led to this? He reached down and picked what was left of a saw blade off the ground. It was just a pile of segments as the rivet heads had been ground off by the ash. The ash and blast which he said had blown ash into the wood fibre of the trees made them extremely difficult to harvest. He was one of best guy's I ever made a move for. He moved the old Skagit out to the truck. I joined him as I was going to have to unload it and he showed me what I needed to know. We couldn't get the boom/ tower down. The winch was not going to work. The loader and the skidder went on with out issue. Several hours later a guy coming by in a Weyco service truck took pity on all of us and mickey moused it to lower it. Might still be up there if it hadn't been for him. I apologized to the logger as we were leaving with his iron, he shook hands with me and said not to worry about it. It was just as well and was always a next time... I have these images stored still on Kodachrome slides. They are mostly scenery shots as I was so amazed by what I was seeing. By the time we got the Skagit down and road ready I had determined that I hated the thing and I don't think I have an image of it. I will take the slides in and get them converted. It will probably take a couple weeks. I will post them here.

wow. what an experience.

The devastation shown in this thread is beyond imagination.

petepilot · Nov 28, 2019

Mother Deuce said:
I have a box of slides of the Windy Ridge area of the blast zone in late 80 or early 81. We moved a hand from Sedro out of there. He went in after the Governor opened the red zone to forestry salvage. It was and remains one of the saddest jobs I have ever done. We met the logger and followed his crummy in to what was I believed, what a nuclear strike aftermath looked like. We crossed bridges that were shattered but standing and yet deemed useable at the time. We ended up either at Windy Ridge or a little east. He had been logging with an old Skagit SJ5 on rubber and a Prentice loader on a skid steer carriage and a skidder. When we reached the landing. We were looking into the muzzle of the largest implement of destruction, I have ever seen. Spirit Lake was a steaming morass of floating logs. With the trucks shutdown the quiet was deafening. There was not a sound, no insects no nothing... save for the mountain that was cracking and spitting Volkswagon sized rocks as it worked on it's dome building. The ground was like walking on concrete, you barely left a boot print in it. The logger whose name I have forgotten was surrendering his iron to the finance company. With so much wood down I had to ask, what led to this? He reached down and picked what was left of a saw blade off the ground. It was just a pile of segments as the rivet heads had been ground off by the ash. The ash and blast which he said had blown ash into the wood fibre of the trees made them extremely difficult to harvest. He was one of best guy's I ever made a move for. He moved the old Skagit out to the truck. I joined him as I was going to have to unload it and he showed me what I needed to know. We couldn't get the boom/ tower down. The winch was not going to work. The loader and the skidder went on with out issue. Several hours later a guy coming by in a Weyco service truck took pity on all of us and mickey moused it to lower it. Might still be up there if it hadn't been for him. I apologized to the logger as we were leaving with his iron, he shook hands with me and said not to worry about it. It was just as well and was always a next time... I have these images stored still on Kodachrome slides. They are mostly scenery shots as I was so amazed by what I was seeing. By the time we got the Skagit down and road ready I had determined that I hated the thing and I don't think I have an image of it. I will take the slides in and get them converted. It will probably take a couple weeks. I will post them here.

I look forward to that

Hallback · Nov 30, 2019

Thank you for your story Deuce, those of us who lived thru it and lost loved ones/equipment in it know exactly what you described.

Truck Shop · Nov 30, 2019

I lived in Ellensburg at the time and that morning was the strangest. Suddenly there was no dogs barking, no birds chirping-no nothing dead quiet. Then to the southwest you could see
this black curtain, literally a curtain, a wall of ash headed east-northeast. When it finally reached town it just went black, street lights came on and stayed that way for hours. I-90 became
a four lane ghost town with abandoned cars and trucks and we only ended up with two inches of ash, the Columbia Basin was far worse. I had a old oil bath air cleaner that I converted
to use on my car and siliconed the distributor cap to seal it. I had to clean the ash out of the oil bath everyday it would be an inch deep in the bottom. The stores sold out of food and beer
right quick. Only local casualty was a crop duster named Vern Mitchell he was spraying fields near Cle Elum and was trying to out fly it coming back to town and flew into the main
Bonneville power lines in the canyon crossing the river at Bristol Flats.

Birken Vogt · Nov 30, 2019

Dad has a friend who is a farmer out by Hillsboro, Or and was out thrashing some crop with the combine after it happened. The crop was still salvageable but of course the dust cloud around the combine was immense. I believe Dad and he had a full time job keeping the combine running with all the dust but in the end it was pretty manageable.

Hallback · Dec 1, 2019

We lived in Morton at the time & dad had two of the sides at Coldwater. He had a cast from hip to ankle on after tearing his knee up & still working on it. We were visiting my grandparents (We lived next door) and I remember everything getting very dark and the deepest rumbling you ever felt/heard. My grandpa said that I'd better open my birthday present early (1/18 scale NAPA Kenworth & Trailer) since we didn't know what the outcome would be. It started raining down ash & pumice rock the size of golf balls. My mom was hollering at him to get her trans am under cover so the paint didn't get ruined. Lol, My dad also owned a body shop at the time (mainly for equipment, crummys & pickups) and donned his respirator to head into town. He gathered all the beer, meat, potatoes and coffee he could then got all the air, fuel & oil filters he could.
Snowplows were running wide open to clear the ash and it was just genuine chaos.
It took close to 6 months to get into the gear and it was just as TS said, as close to a nuclear warzone as you could get. Both sides had just flat out disappeared. The only gear ever recovered from there was Shorty Long's saw & the lower of a Linkbelt LS-108.
I am a firm believer that we would have still been logging old growth into the 2000s if not for that eruption and all the eyes from around the world it brought down upon us.
Just barely 10 years after that devastated eastern Lewis & Skamania counties the "Owl" debacle (such a scapegoat it was) came thru and shut us down for good.
It still hurts to this day to see emptiness where Mt. Adams Veneer, Cowlitz Stud and Max West mills once stood. To see the abandoned shops of Ladimer, Filla, Moe and others along with the emptiness where Cascade Loggers Supply once occupied and the general poverty & sadness of an area once so strong, proud & respected.

With this I will end my saddening memory...

Government regulation killed our community, do not let it kill yours.

Mother Deuce · Dec 1, 2019

Hallback said:
We lived in Morton at the time & dad had two of the sides at Coldwater. He had a cast from hip to ankle on after tearing his knee up & still working on it. We were visiting my grandparents (We lived next door) and I remember everything getting very dark and the deepest rumbling you ever felt/heard. My grandpa said that I'd better open my birthday present early (1/18 scale NAPA Kenworth & Trailer) since we didn't know what the outcome would be. It started raining down ash & pumice rock the size of golf balls. My mom was hollering at him to get her trans am under cover so the paint didn't get ruined. Lol, My dad also owned a body shop at the time (mainly for equipment, crummys & pickups) and donned his respirator to head into town. He gathered all the beer, meat, potatoes and coffee he could then got all the air, fuel & oil filters he could.
Snowplows were running wide open to clear the ash and it was just genuine chaos.
It took close to 6 months to get into the gear and it was just as TS said, as close to a nuclear warzone as you could get. Both sides had just flat out disappeared. The only gear ever recovered from there was Shorty Long's saw & the lower of a Linkbelt LS-108.
I am a firm believer that we would have still been logging old growth into the 2000s if not for that eruption and all the eyes from around the world it brought down upon us.
Just barely 10 years after that devastated eastern Lewis & Skamania counties the "Owl" debacle (such a scapegoat it was) came thru and shut us down for good.
It still hurts to this day to see emptiness where Mt. Adams Veneer, Cowlitz Stud and Max West mills once stood. To see the abandoned shops of Ladimer, Filla, Moe and others along with the emptiness where Cascade Loggers Supply once occupied and the general poverty & sadness of an area once so strong, proud & respected.

With this I will end my saddening memory...

Government regulation killed our community, do not let it kill yours.

So many casualties and indirect losses. The owl may have been worse as far as far reaching went. It seemed to be a never ending parade of gear coming out of the woods for auction and a very uncertain future from NorCal to Alaska to Montana for forestry hands. Still don't really why we export our best logs to Japan. I was watching a log ship in Astoria a few years ago... at some point I just shook my head and left. We damn sure, know how to produce lumber in this country.

dirty4fun · Dec 1, 2019

While I know there is still good lumber around we sure aren't seeing it here. I got 110 9' studs and had to return 24 because they were split so bad, that I thought they would fall apart. Most have one edge with bark or where the bark has come off, already. The Doug Fir is quite a bit better quality, in the 2 X 10 and 12

Mother Deuce · Dec 1, 2019

dirty4fun said:
While I know there is still good lumber around we sure aren't seeing it here. I got 110 9' studs and had to return 24 because they were split so bad, that I thought they would fall apart. Most have one edge with bark or where the bark has come off, already. The Doug Fir is quite a bit better quality, in the 2 X 10 and 12

I have noticed that to at some of the box stores. Coming from Washington and being raised just south of 3 Weyco mills and having family that worked out of Headquarters on Weyco logging trains. I was blessed living at home to be able to get premium lumber anytime. Out here... not so much.

Ronsii · Dec 1, 2019

If we get a chance to export logs we do it! the margins are so tough you have to... there have been quite a few times when there is a glut of top quality timber and they won't take any more for export then those logs stay domestic and you will see better lumber at the stores shortly after it happens.

Ronsii · Dec 7, 2019

I have a bunch of pics taken after it blew, I'll try to scan in a few now and then.

Taken August 94

Windy ridge August 94

Ronsii · Dec 7, 2019

Another from further up Windy ridge looking at the lake August 94

Mother Deuce · Dec 8, 2019

Mother Deuce said:
I have a box of slides of the Windy Ridge area of the blast zone in late 80 or early 81. We moved a hand from Sedro out of there. He went in after the Governor opened the red zone to forestry salvage. It was and remains one of the saddest jobs I have ever done. We met the logger and followed his crummy in to what was I believed, what a nuclear strike aftermath looked like. We crossed bridges that were shattered but standing and yet deemed useable at the time. We ended up either at Windy Ridge or a little east. He had been logging with an old Skagit SJ5 on rubber and a Prentice loader on a skid steer carriage and a skidder. When we reached the landing. We were looking into the muzzle of the largest implement of destruction, I have ever seen. Spirit Lake was a steaming morass of floating logs. With the trucks shutdown the quiet was deafening. There was not a sound, no insects no nothing... save for the mountain that was cracking and spitting Volkswagon sized rocks as it worked on it's dome building. The ground was like walking on concrete, you barely left a boot print in it. The logger whose name I have forgotten was surrendering his iron to the finance company. With so much wood down I had to ask, what led to this? He reached down and picked what was left of a saw blade off the ground. It was just a pile of segments as the rivet heads had been ground off by the ash. The ash and blast which he said had blown ash into the wood fibre of the trees made them extremely difficult to harvest. He was one of best guy's I ever made a move for. He moved the old Skagit out to the truck. I joined him as I was going to have to unload it and he showed me what I needed to know. We couldn't get the boom/ tower down. The winch was not going to work. The loader and the skidder went on with out issue. Several hours later a guy coming by in a Weyco service truck took pity on all of us and mickey moused it to lower it. Might still be up there if it hadn't been for him. I apologized to the logger as we were leaving with his iron, he shook hands with me and said not to worry about it. It was just as well and was always a next time... I have these images stored still on Kodachrome slides. They are mostly scenery shots as I was so amazed by what I was seeing. By the time we got the Skagit down and road ready I had determined that I hated the thing and I don't think I have an image of it. I will take the slides in and get them converted. It will probably take a couple weeks. I will post them here.

Found the slides! Hopefully we can drop them off today.

Ronsii · Dec 8, 2019

Cool!!! MD, There should be lots of pics around here somewhere from shortly after it lost it's top... I got some great 35mm shots going around and inside the dome from a few hundred feet over it, we got video here too... somewhere.

Logging Equipment- Dead at Mt. St. Helens!

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