Saturday morning breakfast in the lodge and we are joined by the Student Logging Crew and Jeff Wimer. Jeff has a unit laid out for us and is ready to show their current logging operation up the 400 road. Safety briefing and last minute prep work and we’re off.

First stop is the Triad Shovel and Koller tower site

Jeff took the wheel of the shovel and had his crew handle the on-the-ground dialog. Half the students went down to the rigging to watch and take part in choker setting and learning the talkie tooter whistle language as they readied logs to come to the landing. After the carriage came up, they were unhooked at the landing and Jeff decked the logs from the shovel. Students were invited to watch from the wheelhouse of the shovel while Jeff moved logs around.

Afterwards, I led a brief discussion on grading and merchandising and then students switched sides and we repeated the operation again

After the logging demo, we moved on to a falling demo and high climbing demo. Time for a quick lunch and we have a second date with Arne on the other side of the forest to look at precipitation and infiltration

We met with Arne and Amy at the interface of a reforested stand and older stand. Arne explained base concepts behind infiltration and the tools used to measure infiltration rates.

Students split up in twos and went off to put in infiltration plots. Amy, Arne, and I traverses between the groups checking on progress and answering questions. Afterwards we all met to discuss findings and what the measurements meant. Arne gave a last talk on how infiltration rates affected runoff and how western forests infiltration rates exceeded precipitation rates

Back to the cabin after a week packed full and a second week to follow. First steps, prep for the drive over to the East Side Sunday Morning. More importantly, get more food to hold over the group.