Contour felling in Clashindarroch Forest
Images courtesy of Tom Dunn, Forestry Commission Operations Supervisor based at Huntly.
This series of views in the attached PDF show a site near Finglennie in Clashindarroch Forest where an extensive area is being clearfelled by the Huntly Felling team using the contour felling method. The first shots are overviews of the site followed by close ups of the produce strips with very neatly stacked small roundwood and above them the various sized saw logs. Note the remains of the bench trees lying uphill used to roll the trees once they were sned down to near the produce zone where they were crosscut.
Easily seen are the stopper trees with high cut stumps to hold the piles of logs on the side slope. The zone with the all the tree branches and tops made a good running mat for the forwarders but the side slop would be too steep on some areas and they would be to revert to running straight up and down the hill.
The concentrated brash and branch zones proved a problem when replanting until the advent of mounding with excavator based machines and large triangular buckets.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Northeast Scotland
The final presentation looked a bit different from that on your pictures as the pulp would always be stacked on top of the logs at right angles.
As you felled the trees across the hill, the logs were cut off, measured and turned as you moved along the tree. Pulp would be sned and the lengths marked off as you went. At the end, the whole length was turned, back sned and crosscut at the marks. The end of each piece was flicked downhill to lie at right angles to previous logs and left. Logs were back sned and rolled down to the stoppers.
Once the tops were no longer landing near the pulp, you went back and simply pulled them downhill and laid them on the logs. If you had done the previous bit correctly, there was no carrying involved, simply sliding the pulp a couple of metres downhill to logs. This ensured that the pulp would be completely clear of brash and that it was very easy to pass a choker under the pulp. Comment left on 22 February 2015 at 13:14 by Andy MacNicol