There was a logging outfitter, sold everything you might need if you ran a high-lead logging outfit, and he had a son. Just because your son grew up around logging and helped sell every kind of logging equipment, from cable to gloves, doesn’t mean they should go out in the woods and see what it’s all about. This young whippersnapper was rarin’ to go when he arrived on the job site on the early morning of the first day of the job that season.
It was my second season on the job and I was to run the rigging. In other words, I was to signal the yarder operator when to pull on the cables. It was my responsibility to keep everyone safe in the brush. By those in the brush I mean those down the mountain hooking up cables around logs. I would take another cable that extended from the yarder and hooked it to cables that were hooked to logs. Complicated.
But this logger supply outfit honcho had a son and here he was, a new guy on my crew, and we were going logging. It wasn’t like he was a know it all, he just was real curious about everything. He was curious and not scared and that is a bad combination. Me, I was always scared for my life ever since I showed up on a logging job. They told me when I first showed up that I should always run away from logs being towed away or trees being fell and when I thought I was safe I should run ten feet further. I got in good shape fast. But this guy, Joe by the way, was always in the bite. When a logger is in the bite this means they’re in the worst spot they could be. The bite is often right where the cable would hit if it broke or right where the top of the log would fling if it flung.
So there was Joe, always in the wrong place at the right time to get killed, and there was me in charge of him and his safety. Joe’s pa, the logger outfitter, and Mark, the Boss of our logging company were good pals and should Joe’s safety be compromised their friendship would likely end. These thoughts stressed me all through the day as I watched out for curious George and had to do half of his work for him too.
One time Joe and I were trying to get a choker (15 ft cable) wrapped around a big ponderosa pine log. We got it all wrapped up and then I looked over at Joe and said, “Man, you got ants all over you! Red ones.” About that time those ants decide to bite and I quickly began to knock them off of Joe. But Joe got bit several times and I’ll be danged if Joe didn’t start acting faint after that for awhile. I never heard of ant bites causing faintness but I am glad they weren’t bald faced hornets or Joe would have been done for.
The day finally rolled to an end and found Joe and I wore out, at the bottom of the mountain, and now, with the challenge of hiking our way back to the top. We had already been to the top a few times that day in the swing of things and I decided we would call for a “tow out”. A “tow out” is illegal and it is where the yarder operator sends down a cable for you and your rigging buddies to get towed out with. The cable comes down the big line on a roller car and has a couple of chokers (15 ft cables) on the end of it. Joe and I were the only ones down there and so I handed him a choker and signaled the yarder operator to start pulling us out. Only an expert yarder operator could be trusted in a “tow out” but Kenny was a seasoned veteran and I had no real worries.
Joe was having a blast. His temporary illness from the ants had vanished as soon as the cable started towing us up the hill. The length of the cable has to be adjusted for the different types of terrain that a logger comes across while being towed up the mountainside. For instance, if we were to come across a gully we would have to signal the yarder operator to stop pulling us and give us more cable from the roller car so that we wouldn’t be swinging twenty feet off the ground instead of walking on it. That is just what happened. The roller car, with the cable running through it, was sitting about 60 to 70 feet in the air and Joe and I needed to get some slack so we could walk through a gully.
I was pretty new to the way the roller car spit slack out so what happened was a total accident. Joe was standing over there at the edge of the gully with two chokers in his hands waiting for me to signal for slack. I had handed Joe my choker so I could use my signaling device. When the yarder operator heard my signal he kicked a bunch of slack out of the drum and the line brake inside the roller car went off at the same time. This sucked up the line, and two chokers that Joe was holding onto, at a rapid pace. The problem is Joe held on.
As I saw Joe begin to fly into the air I said, “Let go!” but then, a split second later, he was at 30ft and climbing fast, and I said, “No hold on, hold on!” I signaled a stop and when the cables stopped Joe kept moving upward and then downward with gravity and then was jerked like a ragdoll when the cables came to rest. He still held on. Joe was now at least 50 ft off the ground, hanging there, saying, “Oh that was so fun man, let me do it again, c’mon let me do it again.”
I signaled for slack and Joe was let quickly down to the ground where I informed him we were done with the “tow out” business and we were hiking out. The illness from the ants must have returned because Joe hung his head and began trudging up the mountain.
No comments:
Post a Comment