They're Where Action Is in the Tall
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' They're where action is in the tall •M ^%$; ' mk i •.- r I I oming's Absaroka peaks loom in distance as DF-400, its load dumped Load is "built up" on Transtar 400 while President Reed (right) of Wind River s logging-dolly piggyback as it heads for reload at woods landing. Logging chats with Casper IH Dealer H. Radcliff and foreman S. Frazer (left). But TRAIL'S size-up of forests shows use of IH muscles, other modern practices have eased role of 'Jack' in Western lumberjacking The winds of change are whispering audibly and bred. Efficiency's now synonymous with mobility. with increasing intensity through the big woods of Wheels outnumber hands by an ever-widening margin. the Rocky Mountain West and the Pacific Northwest. Essentially, the forest products industry is relying Under the impact of new techniques in logging more and more upon powerful equipment to replace these stands of green merchantable timber, the old the lumberman's muscle and strong back. Common in time lumberjack is rapidly becoming as imaginary as the densely wooded high country for example, are some of his more fanciful tales about legendary Paul dieselized International trucks shuttling giant log loads Bunyan and Babe, his patient and powerful blue ox. between forest cutting sites and sawmills. They tra Mechanization and conservation have become the verse haul roads that demand steady gear shifting, new "Code of the West" for the industry harvesting acceleration and braking. Punishing, it's the supreme pine, fir, spruce, hemlock, cedar and other softwoods. test of motorized equipment. Yet, DF-400 models do Long gone are the bellowing ox teams which it day in, day out with payloads of up to 50 tons sup dragged huge logs to market over skid roads. Also vic ported in the wide bunks of their long-log dollies. tims of the march of modern forestry science and Fact is, the trucked cargo may become bigger—if economics were the grizzled men who worked, drank tests now underway are any index of things to come. and fought through cutting seasons on a steady diet More than 107 tons (25,000 board feet) are being of pork and beans. They're in oblivion, along with the carried on private forest-access roads by a Montana two-man "misery whip" (large, handpowered, cross operator (Richard Rossignol, Missoula). He's experi cut saw). Today's lumberjack wields a lightweight, menting with a triple-trailer combination coupled to motor-driven power saw, wears a hard hat, has steel a DCF-400. toes in his caulks (hobnail boots), attends first aid Added to such familiar sights are loader and/or classes and, more often than not, goes to and from blade-equipped IH track-type tractors which al daily work shifts on wheels. ternately prepare tree "layouts," bring timber to the Increased mechanization is everywhere apparent in log landing for loading and help carve out all-weather the forests, where science and sinew were once as in roads in the remote terrain. These routes ease access compatible as the teaming of a mule and a thorough to the deep woods; they are really the keys to the "Felling" a tree in Togwotee Pass area of Gros Ventre mountains, this Bound for a Coeur d'Alene mill, logs are placed on a J. E. Hall rig worker's an Arapahoe Indian, a cutter for Wind River Logging. spotted in wilderness between Moscow, Idaho and Spokane. Payloads average 10,000 board feet. Harbinger of future? On private road near Thompson Falls, Mont., DCF-400 makes test run with triple-trailer. Log cargo: 107 tons! mobility marking modern logging operations. But trucks and tractors are only part of the multj wheeled woodsman's remarkable gear. Any sprea worthy of the name fields things like mammoth crana with "teeth" lifting six-ton loads at a time, king-siza fork lifts, heel boom loaders and stackers, along wil those whining saws. To be sure, the old simplicities of the "forest prj meval" have succumbed to the age of mechanizatioi Trees are no longer logged on a cut-and-get-out basl They are harvested with fine discrimination afl "cruisers" stalk the forests and mark with a spray guj the sawtimber ready for cutting. Also parts of I industry's new history and tradition are elaborate coil munications systems. And there are helicopters whia give bosses quick access to the woods and help ti industry sow its future through reforestation and pi form fire, disease and insect control. One big WesteJ logger uses a 10-ton "skyhook" balloon to airlift I to landings. And Bunyan would hardly recognizee kind of logging done by a versatile device that ci strip, top, fell and bunch as many trees in an hour! a good man can in a full day. There's still another change which any logger,! matter how beset with nostalgia, can fail to welcoml The "high rigger" has disappeared. Instead of climbil 100 feet up a bare "spar tree" to attach riggingl moving fallen trees into place for hauling, he and! crew now erect — in just a few hours — portable stej towers to do the job. Indeed, the magnificent Bunyanesque absurdities survive only in loggers' names for themselves and'their specialities: whistle punks, truck punchers, choker set ters, top loaders, limbers, straw pushers, knot bumpers, chasers, scalers and bull buckers. And still of legendary proportions are evening meals at the few wilderness camps left in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. But most of the men stroll off to watch television after dining. Anyway, most camps are mere memories. There are a few modern lumber towns with a mode of living indiscernible from any U. S. commu nity of homes and bustling streets. Regardless, the aver age'jack spends nights at home with his family. He's whisked there at day's end by a company bus or in his own car. Access roads have brought the job within easy commuting distance of workers' abodes. Commuter he frequently is, all right, and that may spawn loose talk about old time lumbermen turning in their graves at such convenience and "softness." The very thought is as unlikely as the oldie about Bun- yan felling an entire forest in one day and having Babe haul all the timber in one trip. Like yesterday's, today's logging demands muscle and stamina. The same satis faction of rugged accomplishment as always under scores the annual harvesting, milling and shipping of millions of board feet for an industry that's, basically, three-in-one: lumber, plywood and paper. It's a field studded with statistics that match its hefty labors. The profession has a capital investment of over $19 billion and employs more than 1.5 million people with a yearly payroll of $8 billion. Naturally, the West abounds with exemplary evi dence of methods characteristic of lumbering's new era. On one hand are spreads feeding such giant, di versified concerns as Georgia-Pacific, Crown Zeller- bach, Weyerhaeuser and Potlach Forests. On the other are outfits supplying logs to a diversity of other com panies. Common to all: the ingenuity of the modern lumberman is given free rein. A good case in point is an operation centered in Dubois (Pop.: 574), a northwestern Wyoming spot on the eastern edge of the lofty Continental Divide. Here, some 100 miles from the place where Wyoming and Idaho sit cheek to cheek, is the supporting millsite (U.S. Everyday scenes (panel, right) in timber country of the West mirror forest industry's dependence upon IH-powered mechanization. TD-15 'dozers (top) in Wind River service snake logs out of the underbrush, skid them to landings and log passed-by corners, pockets and blow-down timber. Scout and DF-400 (center) typify varied, 86-unit IH array supporting vast J. E. Hall operations in Montana, Idaho and Washington. Device hoisting logs from bunks of DF-400 (bottom) is a 90,000-lb. capacity log stacker used in yard of Dubois, Wyo., mill to take loads from Wind River's highway linkups. In one sweep it grasps full payload and "decks" it. Plywood, a division of USP—Champion Papers, Inc.) for crews logging Federal lands for the Wind River Logging Company. Mountain ranges like the Gros Ven tre, Absaroka and Green River tower over and rim the forest country around Dubois. And it's here the Wind River outfit—Wyoming's biggest—labors at elevations ranging from 7,000 to 9,500 feet. Under direction of Glavis Reed, Wind River presi dent, 75 men toil, armed with an array of "tools" rang ing from screaming chain saws and TD-15 'dozers to a rip-roaring logging fleet, 11 DF-400's strong. The man-and-wheeled composite makes deft work of cut ting, sawing and transporting 43 million board feet a year. Not only do the big diesel trucks consistently contend with ponderous loads, but they do it where adverse grades—even on Wind River's uncommonly fine logging roads—frequently exceed 9 per cent and, fc*^ 0L in winter, are snow-covered their full, 50 miles' length. 4*4 For the round robin treks (35 to 45 trips daily) with 75,000-to-85,000 lb. gross loads of lodgepole pine and Engleman spruce, Wind River's diesel fleet is equipped, in the main, with 335-hp. engines and 5-speed trans missions driving through 4-speed auxiliaries. All the Hardly mindful of camps of yore, today's (above) stand in the vehicles have 38,000-lb. capacity driving axles. The enveloping woods, trim, substantial and electrically lighted.