Nice colour in the trees even though it has been so dry. Everything is going brown here even the vine maples. The only place campinspecter can harvest trees from are logging slashes that are not active and it has to be close to the road.
I thought they would be a dull colour considering how dry we are this year but weve also had a few good frosts so I think this helps as well. I was using my Iphone 5s for the pics and the sun was hit and miss yesterday.
Thanks Dennis. We are going to try and get it split and stacked today but first I have to go to work for awhile. We also have snow in the forecast so if that pans out it will be nice and cool for us to work in.
I wondered if you might be getting snow as I see a snow storm predicted for the northern Rockies. It would be nice if some of that colder air come here. Yes, it was 37 the last couple mornings but the next 3 days are supposed to be in the 70's with one day in the 80's. Not good for this time of year.
Went out today with a friend and grabbed some spruce, lodgepole pine and doug fir. We were able to fill both trucks. Nice to work in a bit of snow except we were cutting on relatively steep ground that had polished slab rocks hiding just underneath a bit of snow that made for some little slips. The downed tree on the road was a standing dead spruce that came down in the last few weeks. ( I was cutting with my son in this spot a few weeks ago).
The back two rows are what I thought were dry spruce. The top half of the tree is good to go but the bottom half is now in the stacks for next year. The fir in the front two rows was all between 20% and 10% mc so Im happy about that. My buddy's truck was full of nice dry lodgepole pine. He doesnt have a wood stove but we have lots of outside fires at his place. Once the work was done we stopped for a beer on the tailgate. It was wicked windy at times today. The wind was blowing snow off the trees and into our faces. It almost felt like winter even though it was only -2c. I had to take some more pics of my favorite tree the larch in all its fall splendor. My son came out to help me unload and work the splitter. Check out that booger in the spruce round!
Its a bit surreal. It wasnt to long ago that we were sucking smoke air and dealing with evacuation alerts. Now its all changed. Mother nature to the rescue!! EDIT: I also think that I would be amiss if I didnt mention all the firefighters out there who helped keep the fires from advancing. I would hate to think what we would have lost before the weather changed for the better.
You have beautiful country up there. I had a gig in Castlegar a few years ago for BC Hydro. Due to flight delays here in the states, I missed my Central Mountain Air flight from Calgary to Castlegar. I ended up driving, thinking I would drop the car and catch my return flight out of Castlegar, never thinking about which rental company to use. Nope, Avis didn't have a location in Castlegar so I had to drive back. On the way back the tunnel was closed east of Elko. Other drivers were out on the road talking when a guy trying to get to the coal mine (I think, it was coal) said follow me. We did a u turn, drove to Elko and took a logging road along the south side of the river. It was probably a lane and a half wide. Glad I had an SUV, cause there were some big rocks on that road. When I stopped at the McDonald's in Fernie I saw where a large rock had popped out from under a passed truck's tire and dented the bottom of the rear passenger door. Glad my clients pay for the LDW. I got into Calgary later than I expected, but enjoyed the detour. Again, beautiful country up there.
That is my MO as well. Most guys settle for what is right beside the road and usually it's pretty crappy stuff. Last time I was out I saw a bunch of trucks and trailer full of blackened lodgepole rounds they got from a burned out area. No Thanks! Been there, done that. Cutting through the charred bark is hard on your chain and black mess of working with that burned wood follows you into the truck and all the way into your house. Also, usually the wood is nowhere near dry like the standing beetle kill trees. With beetle kill the reason they get so dry is because the blue staining fungus the beetles drag into the trees blocks off the sap carrying "veins" and the tree dries up for lack of water and nutrients, but with trees killed by fire those internal veins still continue to functioning for a long time after tree looks completely dead on the outside. Sure you can stack and season the wood until it's dry, but you never get rid of that dirty black bark. They can have it. Love seeing those pictures of the Rocky mountains. I've been hang gliding since the 1970s, but I had on of my most memorable flights in Golden BC. I was demoing a new modern hang glider a guy was selling, my personal glider was pretty old and I was excited to try this new glider. After launching I hooked a thermal and was very focused in staying in that thermal which was getting stronger the higher I got, this and feeling out the nuances of this new glider kept me distracted me from noticing the scenery for a bit. I climbed pretty quick and at some point at about 1000 ft or so above the mountain tops I started to look around and my whole mind set changed...... I completely forgot about the thermal I was in and the fact that I was flying in a new glider and just relaxed and blissfully drifted in awe at the spectacular viewpoint I was witnessing. As beautiful as the Rockies are when you are looking up at them they are a hundred times more majestic when you are flying in just over the their peaks and it feels like you can just reach out and touch them, truly a unique perspective. Needless to say I bought that glider and continued to make many more pilgrimages out to fly the longer and higher flights over the Rockies, but that first flight is still my most memorable. This video I found on youtube shows the precise area where I flew and sights I saw.
My friend ended up getting the blue lodgepole which turned out much drier than the standing dead spruce I got although its probably a fair trade off as I got the dry doug fir. Spruce is so light even when its a bit on the wet side. I like my moisture meter for these kinds of things. Thats neat that youre into hand gliding. I bet the scenery you get to see in our province is spectacular. Do you have a go pro? I wish I had one on my helmet back in the day when I climbed ice.
I was driving through there and had a rock incident once. We call that area the rock cuts. I was heading west when my front passenger window was shattered by a rock that fell from above. I never did see how big the rock was and it didn't dent the door but we had to drive to Cranbrook in the winter with no window! Neat that in your travels your detours took you through some pretty country. Weve traveled river road as well when the tunnel has an accident. It can get pretty hairy in the winter though. Ive seen the snow deep over there at times not to mention the ice.
Unfortunately there were no Gopros or even any HD video cameras back when I was actively hang gliding. I did use to hook an old standard definition video camera on to the wind once in a while, but even back then I was always disappointed with the low resolution video it produced. I still have some old video tapes stored away with videos of the kids when they were young. I do remember flying with my first one megapixel digital camera though. Some of guys I flew with were into climbing and I climbed a few little cliffs, but never really had the time for getting into another activity. The one guy who was into it big time did a bit of ice climbing too, in fact one year he was telling me he helped build an ice climbing tower at the local ski hill (video below). Rock climbing I'm OK with, but frankly climbing ice seems a little shaky to me . Yes that was a nice touch.
Lumber-Jack Thats a cool ice tower he built! I bet he had lots of fun with that. I actually found ice easier to climb than rock although I had a rock rack because of the alpine mixed rock and ice routes I used to do. I spent lots of years doing it and even put up a bunch of first ascents in the sea to sky area back in the day. Biggest route I ever did was Liberty ridge on the north face of Rainier. Waterfall ice routes ended up being where my true passion was though. I have a big bin full of slide film that I need to change over to digital. It helped having a friend who was a photographer. Wish I had a picture or two to share but that will have to be for another day I guess.
