By Michael Howell
The logging trucks are rolling out of some west side drainages as work on the Westside Collaborative Vegetation Management Project has begun. The project is one in a long line of projects on the Bitterroot National Forest that since 2007 have treated more than 30,000 acres of National Forest lands that border private property in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). This project involves treating another 2,000 acres stretching from Roaring Lion south to Lost Horse.
The purpose of the project is to improve forest health and reduce forest fuels and lower crown fire hazards while also restoring wildlife and native plant habitat and diversity. The project includes 1,200 acres of commercial timber harvest and 978 acres of non-commercial thinning to reduce fire fuels. Some prescribed burning will also be used. The commercial harvest is expected to produce over 6 million board feet of timber. Proceeds from the timber harvest will go back into the local forest and be used on other parts of the project such as meadow restoration, noxious weed treatment, seeding and planting, and some aspen grove enhancement work.
“Besides improving forest health and reducing hazardous fuels and the potential for crown fires, this project will provide jobs and economic benefits to our local communities,” said BNF Supervisor Julie King.
Planning for the management project over a larger area has been in the works for quite a while. While in the planning stage the Roaring Lion Fire beat the agency to the punch and resolved the issue of overstocked timberland on 8,700 acres in a catastrophic fashion, taking out 16 homes as well as all that timber in July of 2016.
The project was finally approved but then held up by a lawsuit. That lawsuit was resolved in March of 2017 in a settlement agreement that required moving the location of a haul road away from local residences. Local landowner Fred Rohrbach agreed to allow the agency a temporary road permit to access the project areas through his property using an existing road along his northern boundary.
Work began last week on a portion of the project stretching from Roaring Lion to Lost Horse. The 800-acre timber sale was awarded to Park Logging and the saw logs will be hauled to the family-owned Pyramid Lumber Company in Seeley. The first haul route being used to access Highway 93 is along Gold Creek Loop. Other routes will be used as the project progresses including Blue Jay Lane, Hayes Creek Road, Camas Creek Road and Lost Horse Road.
Four pieces of machinery are being used on the project: a feller/buncher that cuts the trees, a skidder to haul them to the processing site, a dangle head processor that measures the length of the logs, the diameter, and the taper, and a loader. The dangle head processor de-limbs the trees and then cuts them to length, discarding the remains in a slash pile that will eventually be burned. The sale is expected to produce about 1,000 truckloads. Each load weighs about 50,000 pounds. Park Logging has six trucks, each making two trips a day to the sawmill in Seeley.
On the site last week, timber management assistant Ryan Hughes said that conditions couldn’t be better for logging. The sky was blue and the ground was frozen solid, which makes for minimal disturbance when skidding loads across the landscape.
Park Logging truck driver Brian Henderson was also happy about the conditions. On his way from Drummond to the site that morning he had passed through a lot of fog. Here, the sky was clear, with frozen ground and not much snow, making driving easy. Henderson started to work at 2 a.m. in Drummond and arrived at the logging site around 5:30 or 6 p.m. He was about to leave with his second load of the day around noon and would make it to the sawmill in Seeley before it closed for the day, usually around 5 p.m.
Sale Administrator Jon Garlitz said that due to the heavy machinery in use they are closing the upper (north) loop of the popular Coyote Coulee Trail #127 in the Lost Horse drainage for the winter. The lower (south) loop will remain open until log hauling begins there in a few months.
Closure signs and maps will be posted at the trailhead parking area. Coyote Coulee is a popular hiking and horseback riding area that gets heavy use, according to Garlitz, so hikers and riders should be on the alert and watch out for work crews.
For more information contact Darby/Sula Ranger District at (406) 821-3913.