Keeping Cool While Working

The coolest place on the farm,  without actually being in the river, is the old railroad grade. 100 years ago or so, the PNR Railroad and Sunset Logging Company were working in this area of Western Washington County. It was a massive venture to harvest old growth timber from the wild west.

Roads were sparse and not fit for more than a mule or horse driven wagon. Using log trucks for the hauling was out of the question, so the railroad made spurs off the main track that ran from Hillsboro to Tillamook. The spurs were temporary tracks that took the train into the various canyons where the loggers could set up a spar tree (a base of a tree that they attached cables and winches in order to pull logs into the landing and close to the train). A steam crane was used to lift the logs onto the railroad cars.

A small spur could employ 100 strong men and keep them busy for a couple years. Camps would be set up in larger areas and 1000 of workers would move in for the duration of the logging. Once the logging was complete, the camps dissolve, the tracks picked up and a new spur would be added further along the tracks in the Coast Range.

Here on the property that is now our farm, a spur was put in. It ran in a wide sweep across the upper west side of the property. Nothing remains of the tracks or the wooden railroad ties that supported the tracks. The deep gouge that was bulldozed for the railroad still has a solid base of rock that held the ties and  track flat and level as it wound through the tall timber.

Areas of our railroad grade has walls 7-10 feet high. A forest has filled in on both sides of the track and even on the tall sides of the grade. Walking down the railroad grade envelopes you in a cocoon, there are no outside sounds. The hot sun is not able to penetrate the dense fir trees. There is a dampness here even during the driest of weather.

When it gets uncomfortable working out in the open, we retreat to the railroad grade. Since the track was removed, many of the trees are 120 feet tall and nearly 3 feet through on the butt.  A few of the trees are showing stump rot and need to be removed so that the wasting doesn’t spread to the other trees.

The few trees we remove from this stand will not harm the other trees in the stand. We are only thinning out a few of the ones that are issues. The surrounding trees will fill in the spots we are removing and within a few years the only way one would know there was even a tree in that spot would be if the stump was still showing.