Important Upcoming Dates for Cameron Tract Activities!

August 28th: Cameron Tract Twilight Tour.
Elizabeth Starker Cameron Demonstration Forest Pole Harvest Tour
The twilight tour will look at the pole harvest from marked standing
trees, to poles on the landing, and road issues. This is a little bit
different than a regular log harvest, requiring different marketing,
harvesting techniques, road requirements and other things. It is a
great chance to get close up and learn about  the process from the
experienced folks at the OSU College Forests, pole buyers from Pacific
Wood Preserving, logging representative from Cross and Crown, and
other participants.

Date: Wednesday August 28th
Time: 5:30 pm
Location: SEE ABOVE – ADAIR FIRE DEPT. SUBSTATION,  37096 SOAP CREEK ROAD
Directions:  Points North of Adair Village:
South on Hwy 99W to Coffin Butte Road (landfill), west on Coffin Butte
Road to Soap Creek Road.  Continue west on Soap Creek Road,
approximately 3 miles to the Adair Fire Substation.
Points south, west, and east of Adair Village:
North on Hwy 99W to Tampico Road, turn west onto Soap Creek Road,
approximately 3 miles to the Adair Fire Substation.  Alternatively,
take Highland Drive north to Lewisburg Road, west on Lewisburg Road to
Sulphur Springs Road, over the hill and down to Soap Creek Road, then
east approximately 1 mile to the Fire Substation.

September 28th and October 5th will be work party days to give
volunteers the opportunity to help with the construction of the trail
linking the lower Fire House road/trail with the 580 road/trail of the
McDondald Forest. Stay tuned for more information!

August Update!

Another update! New culverts have been installed and the widening of the Firehouse road (trail) was completed last week. Felling of the trees is expected to begin either this coming week or the next. We are in the process of trying to plan an educational Twilight tour to discuss the mechanics of a pole sale, so stay tuned for updates! This will hopefully happen by the end of the month.

The haul route for the utility pole logs will be Soap Creek Road, to Hwy 99 to avoid the winding and busy Lewisberg Saddle area. The log trucks will have a pilot car until they reach Tampico Road. After felling starts, there will be an estimated 4 loads per day between the hours of 4am to 1pm. We're still not entirely sure how long it will take to extract all the poles, but 2-3 weeks is a safe bet. See the post below for more information on utility pole sales in Douglas Fir stands!

Marking the Pole Sale

During the last week in July, pole buyers from Pacific Wood Preserving came to pre-mark the poles for the Cameron Pole sale which will be logged later this summer. The map in the post below shows the location of the pole sale which spans about 20 acres adjacent the Firehouse Trail (or south road) in the interior of the tract. Those 20 acres contain some of the tallest, straightest, most perfect Douglas Fir trees I have ever seen! It was thought several years ago by my advisor John Bliss that the stand would be an ideal utility pole harvest. Luckily it seems he was right!

Douglas Fir trees in the Cameron Pole sale

Boundary tag for the pole sale

Steve Pilkerton, an engineer from the College Forests, Brad Withrow-Robinson and myself had the pleasure of tagging along and learning a little about the process. Marking poles is surprisingly intuitive. A pole tree should be relatively uniform in diameter from DBH (diameter at breast height) until about 60 to 90 feet up the tree. The tree also has to be as strait as possible with little sweep and free from defect such as rot, funny branches, wiggles, crooks and sweep. Below are some examples of what the markers tried to avoid:

This tree had a broken top when it was younger

Tree with a defective arm

Tree with a swollen butt and wood sweep

The sap on this tree is indicative of a scar or heart rot

 

The trees selected for cutting by the pole buyers were marked with a red band

We have a winner!

Currently, timber prices are the highest they've been for several years, with the utility pole market being even more lucrative. Some places of the unit will be a little clumpy, but over all the trees will be cut uniformly over the entire stand to mitigate erosion and wind damage. This pole sale is an ideal demonstration of what a small, private woodland owner could do with a similar stand of timber. The goal of this particular pole sale is to remove only 8-10 trees per acre. Even a such a small volume of timber will generate a substantial revenue for the Cameron Tract that will help contribute to future education, recreation and demonstration projects!

It was a beautiful morning on the Cameron Tract!