Meet Dave Johnson from Missoula, Montana. He is shown here running a Stihl 660 on a job in Northern California.
Dave says, "In 2008 the road took me to Redding, California for Croman Corporation and the Sierra Pacific burn salvage. It was a good sale with patches of good Norcal wood, and crazy Norcal ground."
"I use a lot of your tools. In fact, I couldn't afford jacks so I melted two cases of Blue Ox 12" wedges with your 4 lb. and 6 lb. Council axes. This saved my timber out and kept it out of the creeks."
Dave continues, "This is a picture of my birthday present, the largest tree of the salvage portion of the sale. She was a tuna that had about 4 inches of overlapp with a 42" bar while facing. They never got her before because she leaned too hard out over the creek."
"To cut this tree, I cut my bed, faced her, threw on a slider to jump the creek, plunged her offside and backed my way out, planting five Blue Ox 12" wedges along the way. Next, I plunged the nearside and backed my out to the rear where I bored her heart from behind. Then, snip-snip. I lit the trigger off and watched the glory."
"She was 6.69 feet outside the bark, 74" inside the bark, 12,000 mbf, and ran ten logs -- a 10' (the first flyable cut), four 16's, a 14', break, and a 4l' took her to the tassles. That's 182' of merch, and though the top snapped out over the break, it was clean and crisp. I only lost about 4'."
Below are: "three 16's rippers. (Isn't that a clean rip on the truck?) That was done by bullbucks Andy and Tony Mckee. It was 55" on the small end, and ran 1400 boards. Makes you wonder what that Sikorsky can really pull."
Dave says, "Each year I get farther away from home, the trees and the helicopters get bigger, and I appreciate your service more and more and more."