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Old 17th Sep 2007, 00:57
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malabo
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Montreal
Posts: 717
Received 20 Likes on 12 Posts
Valley Helicopters from Hope, BC. I think the pilot is Joiner. Love that G2 on bags.

For all you tree-huggers, there's practically no such thing as a clearcut in BC anymore, unless there is some eco-reason for it, like clearing a bug kill. Even helicopter wood is cut in patches because to fall trees in singles in the forest is dangerous and inefficient. The video shows a lot of good falling practises. In the early part the faller is doing a "domino" to drop two trees together - maybe their branches were intertwined or they were tied up somehow. Later you see some good examples of directional falling as he levers a tree over against its natural fall by pounding wedges so that it falls sideways and doesn't break up hitting the ground. On most of the cuts the undercut is taken out of the stump to maximize the value of the log. The trickiest cut is the last one where the tree appears to "barberchair" as it's going over - not likely planned.

For the rest of you carbon-credit conscious, harvesting a mature forest is a net plus as the growing replacement sucks a lot more carbon out of the air that the mature stuff. If you looked at the amount of carbon to build and fuel a helicopter I don't think you'd be ecologically ahead to helilog. Heliwood harvesting costs are about three times conventional ground methods.

malabo (still got sawdust in my shoes)
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