The Water Works wasn’t the only job Charlie was able to obtain. He got the timber contract to cut on Betsey Pratt’s property around Mad River Glen Ski Area. I only met Betsey once. She was an eccentric old girl who smoked a corncob pipe. Her dad was the “Pratt” part of the Pratt and Whitney Company, which made airplane engines. She had land holdings on the hardwood ridges below the ski area, and they hadn’t been logged for some time – probably because nobody was crazy enough.
In fact, Mad River Glen was some of the most challenging terrain to log that I would ever face in my woods career. The old roads were eroded streambeds and faint horse-road traces that had to be widened before the Timberjack could scratch its way up the mountain. The road work was thrilling all in itself. I’d be nudging rocks half the size of the bulldozer over the edge of the road. They’d crash their way down the mountain as I watched, perched in my seat. It was almost straight down in places, and the boulders would soon pitch out of sight, their path still discernable by the violent shaking of treetops as they bounced off the trunks. Like in a giant game of Plinko, the bigger ones would ricochet to the bottom. One made it all the way to the field we were landing the logs in. It stopped a few yards short of my car and was almost as big. Could it have been the mountain, trying to fight back? A subtle warning that there are consequences to our actions we might not know of until it’s too late?
But there was maple in them there hills. Rock maple selling for a dollar or better a board foot. Betsey Pratt had kept the loggers out for years, and there was some nice, mature timber at a top-dollar price to be had. Some of the best was the hardest to get, but when one tree can bring hundreds of dollars, it makes it worth fighting for. Some days felt like I’d gone 10 rounds in the ring. Bare-knuckled.
The mature maples clinging to those rock-strewn mountainsides would fill anybody with awe. They were even more intimidating to me as I wrapped my arms around them, my hands nowhere near touching. Some would stretch for nigh on 30 feet, or better, without a pimple on the bark. They had presence. I knew I was about to cut something that had been decades in the making. I had an emotional feeling that wasn’t quite regret but was bordering on it. There was also a feeling of the anticipation of a daunting challenge. Could this be done? It was potentially a deadly test.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t worked steep ground before: Art and I had done more than our fair share of mountain-goat terrain. I knew from days working sidehills that getting as much timber as possible from above was most always preferable to working it from below. Staggering through the limbs and tops of trees from below while pulling a cable and choker uphill gets old quick. And when you’re pulling logs downhill toward the bulldozer, they can get going out of control and come barreling at you like a supersized battering ram. That really gets your attention.
One practice Art and I had perfected on steep terrain was to hook onto the tree to be cut before I sent it flying down the mountain. This prevented it from ending up in a spot that couldn’t be reached with the winch cable. First, he’d get the ass end of the dozer behind a good anchor, be it a stump, tree, hunk of rock, or ledge. I’d place the choker chain around the tree a couple feet above where the back-cut would be then attach the winch cable, tightening it some but leaving a bit of slack so it drooped a little. This slack would allow the tree to fall enough to break the hinge-wood. When the back-cut was finished, I’d turn and leave on the chosen escape path. Once the tree had fallen almost 90 degrees from straight up and the hinge-wood was mostly broken, Art would give the dozer engine full power and winch in. This would pull the butt off the stump and toward the dozer and get the tree coming to it. Then the tree could be held with the winch brake while being limbed out and topped without it taking off down the mountain.
But at Mad River, I was Art-less. My first task each day was to figure out my starting point. I would walk the mountainside where I would be working to determine the lowest trees that would need to be hauled up to our topside skid road. Removing them would make holes in the forest canopy I could use for the upper trees to fall through. Trees of the size I was cutting were going to the ground when cut. If other trees got in their way, they wouldn’t be there for long, so to protect what was being left I had to place my cut trees perfectly.
Once I’d chosen a tree and secured the dozer, I’d pull the cable and choker down. Sometimes I would use all hundred feet of cable on the winch drum plus several eight-foot chokers tied together. I’d put the choker around the tree and hook it to the winch cable and scrabble back to the dozer and take up most of the slack in the cable.
I’d grab my chainsaw and climb back down to the tree to find and clear an escape route. One that wouldn’t just get me away from the tree, but also far enough away from the winch cable in case the worst should happen and it, or a choker, would snap. A flying cable can lop off an arm or leg or possibly cut you in half. And steel choker shrapnel can kill a logger just as dead as a falling tree.
I’d gather all my wits, think things through one last time, and fire up my chainsaw. I’d drop the tree and run, glancing up and moving as quick as I could without panicking. And it was hard not to panic when the forces I’d released were shaking the ground. Sometimes the bulldozer would almost stand on its tail, the front blade pointed skyward even though it was resting on the ground just moments before.
When my heart stopped pounding, I’d walk back to the enormous tree, hung on the mountainside by this thin steel cable, and soak in the enormity of what I’d just done. That a puny man had vanquished a huge denizen of the Northwoods, one that sprouted here long before I ever existed. I knew it would live on as a wood product, but where? Most of the logs Charlie sold were exported. I’d never know what would become of these trees. Would the people who purchased the wood feel the same gratitude I felt when I saw the tree standing tall in the forest? Would they ever appreciate what it endured before it was subjugated to man’s material needs? Could they comprehend the brutal winters, the thundering rainstorms pounding down, gale-force winds trying to tear it off the mountain throughout its long life? They would never be aware of this tree’s struggle for survival. I’m not sure they’d even give a smidgen of thought to what occurred here.