Yair . . . I know little about forestry and logging and wonder how it could be worthwhile to operate under these conditions. This vid surprised me and may be of interest to others . . . I must say the operator is an artist with the grapple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNAA02Lt6bY Cheers
Ever heard of the show "Swamp Loggers"? Bobby Goodson Logging. http://goodsonsallterrainlogginginc.com
A few people in this neck of the woods use forwarders in some pretty rough terrain but it is usually only for commercial pre-thinning. They don't allow any video to be taken that I know of. No one that I know of would work that way in that wet of ground around here. The ruts would be considered unacceptable.
By looking at the young regrowth it appears they have been using that trail for years. It probably has a rock bottom by the looks of it or they would be going deeper and deeper.
You should see what happens when they make ruts like that on a slope. Just get deeper and deeper untill someone buys an excavator and fixes it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LGGxp8ujxY
And here I was expecting a picture of a D9G bringing the turbo online at full load. Quite the interesting rig there for sure. You'd be hung for that mess here.
In the first video just before 3:00 you see the ice floating around. I'm thinking they're finishing up the job and got caught by an early thaw. A couple weeks earlier they may have had frozen ground. I can't imagine that it makes sense to operate like this long term. On the other hand, what does it matter if they make a few puddles in the middle of a swamp? Mud bogging is a sport if you do it for fun.
When I was in high school back in the stoned age, I used to look at pictures of Weyerhauser off road logging trucks. Ten wides at least, V12 Cummins, big Allison autos with retarders, three full length log trailers on behind, bringing huge loads from the landing to the sort yard where they got reloaded onto highway trucks. They would come off the top of one hill pedal to the metal, down into the bottom of a gully and up the next hill with the axles dragging mud all the way. The pictures showed just the center of the hubs above the ruts. A couple of the kids I had class with told me their dad's drove them, said they didn't have to steer in those stretches the ruts were so deep they couldn't turn if they wanted to. If they spun out without making it over the top, they would grab a pair of D8's to hook on for the assist. Was cheaper than rock and in the summer (two weeks in August) it healed up fine. Must have been making money, they did it for thirty years until they ran out of timber to harvest. They should be back in another twenty or so.
Sad truth in many places, it's the get in, get the product and haul butt to the next $$$$ making spot. I've seen P poor outfits in many places (including different states) A good outfit will try and clean up their mess and even smooth out ruts, BUT in the end the Allmighty($$$$$$$)usually makes the rules
The other issue is many private spots are raped and because of the privacy(location) no one knows what's going on until its to late
Normally a timber landowner knows that the value of the land is tied to its capability to regrow timber on a xx years cycle, what is different in this case?
Writing about the unknowing land owner, that may not go to their land very often. When they do get a chance to visit they get quite a surprise . seen it happen more then once. Also have seen "loggers" (in these cases, lack of a better term) sweat talking their way onto a land owners property only to destroy and screw the owner over.