Tiiiimbaaar!!!!

Today I met up with a couple coworkers, a timber sale administrator and a safety officer, and we inspected a logging operation above Elk City. The logging is being done as part of a stewardship contract to thin areas of crowded lodgepole pine, whose proceeds go to instream restoration on the Forest. Because the weather is so warm right now, the frost is thawing on the logging roads so the logging trucks can't make any runs to the mill. If they did they would do too much damage to the roads, creating big ruts and mud bogs, so we had the muddy/slushy/icy roads to ourselves (phew!), despite there being at least 50 loads ready to go on various landings in the sale area.

On the drive up we saw a moose running across a frozen river, tons of white-tailed deer, some river otters, turkeys, and bald eagles. Very cool. While we were up there we chatted up the loggers, checked out the machinery and their trails, and watched them working away. It was very interesting to check out the bad-ass machines and talk to the friendly loggers. On the drive back we saw a bunch of elk, and talked about the state of the agency's timber program today. There is still a lot of conflict, and the values run deep. All I can say is that I believe how we do timber today is an excellent example of democracy in action. No one is getting their way completely...