Hauling wood up ravine (reviving)

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singed

Member
Hearth Supporter
Feb 5, 2008
19
West Gonsin
TLDR: For those who revel in the idea of solving a problem, and don't think, so much, about the cost until they are well into it...

Back over here, CIRENHOJ asked about getting wood UP out of a ravine, as opposed to "just" (remembering that "nothing is hard for the man who will not be doing it") going to the bottom and removing it from there.

To summarize, the consensus seemed to be, if it really HAD to be done, to use a sled of some sort (inverted car hood was favored) either as a cart for rounds or as a "front-end" for short logs.

A couple of respondents however mentioned using a tripod "or derrick" to suspend a cable, which must have stuck in my head because this morning I woke up with an incomplete picture in my head of a sequence of tripods up/down the side of the ravine for a "rope trolley."

After that, the picture kind've faded out... Having imagined a set of tripods with a rope running through pulleys I suspended underneath them, I couldn't picture how to use that rope. Ideally, I'd need to suspend something under the pulleys that I could run a trolley over.

I found this on Amazon, described as "Trolley Assembly,2 Wheel Trolley Rollers for Use with 1-5/8" Wide and All 1-5/8" or Taller Strut Channel."

The vision turned into, unless the amount of wood to be recovered is large, moving wood in stages up-hill by suspending a "few" lengths of unistrut under tripods and winching rounds, or ends of short logs from station to station with one of these trolleys. A more imaginative fellow would suspend saplings under the tripods and come up with a trolley design that would run along the saplings. As I suggested at the outset, this isn't necessarily about finding the easiest firewood to harvest, but about making something that looks impossible possibly feasible.
Hauling wood up ravine (reviving)

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What started my search for a solution is the fact that a massive 5+'-diameter red oak fell, sideways just below the crest of the ridge of the ravine. It has three stems coming off the trunk. The uphill stem was easiest to get to and I started on that, ever mindful that removing the uphill weight might result in it rolling downhill. (I've since fought my way through the brush to look at the rootball; it's not going to be doing any "rolling" of any kind.) After getting that off and packing it up and out--not too bad, about 10' up--I started thinking about getting the second. The way the tree fell trapped a lot of bent and broken trees between the stems so there's a lot of brush now uphill of the second stem. If I go downhill of the stem, I'd need a ladder to reach the second stem, so that's out...

I had an idea to walk along the stem and cut pieces from the end and pull them back along the stem past the brush and then pack them uphill from there. I generalized the idea to a trolley system of sorts.

<BANG!> Just like that! It came to me!

I think what we need is a trebuchet WITH, I hasten to add, a fairly extra-uber-extremely accurate aiming system... I am not seeing the latter on Amazon.
 
I have got one of these. If you have a tree to hook on to, you can use an unlimited line to pull trees with the capstan drive. It has worked good for me pulling logs.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/166808095832
 
(Someone beat me to it. ...and it was MY thread!)

That looks like the ticket. Put some kind of a pull-through nose-cone on the front of a log of three or so rounds and pull!
 
I had a 95 foot red oak growing, 24 inch diameter, 10 feet from my driveway. It blew over in a storm. Unfortunately, it landed downhill. I live on top of a mountain and all that wood was 50, and 80 feet away, down a steep hill. I have 4 snatch blocks, I have ropes. I thought about climbing down that slope, cutting up the tree and hauling it uphill.

I left that oak to rot. Too much work to haul that wood uphill.
 
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A couple of respondents however mentioned using a tripod "or derrick" to suspend a cable, which must have stuck in my head because this morning I woke up with an incomplete picture in my head of a sequence of tripods up/down the side of the ravine for a "rope trolley."
If you have the ability to run power out there, why not use a winch? You can connect one end to a tree strap and run the cable down to a car hood / sled / cart that you pull up the hill.

Electric winch for $170