I was out the last few days dropping some firewood before the sap starts running, There is about 20 to 30 inches of snow on the ground and no crust to speak of. (the crust normally forms by now but it usually coincides with sap season so I like to get the trees dropped a bit earlier. ). Without snowshoes its not going to happen and even with my larger snowshoes, I still sink in a foot. Add in a steep slope in spots and just moving around with all the gear on is slow. I usually pack down around the tree well before I make the cut. I wander around my woodlot and drop the trees that need to be dropped to improve the stand around a possible home site. Its predominantly maple so I target beeches, and trees with obvious defects like rot or twin trees where one is obviously weaker and rubbing against the better tree. I also had some large poplar (aspen) trees that were dominating the overstory with a lot of nice smaller maples underneath getting shaded. One of them was about 24 inches at the base with another one about 20", They both have some real nice straight sections and they will get dragged down for sawing on a friends sawmill. The tops will get left in the woods as I do not normally waste my time with poplar firewood since I have better options.
The definite issue with large snowshoes is that they are mostly straight line travel. Not really suited well for a quick getaway from a cut. If its a tricky cut I leave it, I had a few leaner's today. They are cut and the wind will probably take them down before spring. I will bring some rigging to deal with them later if they do not come down.
It was bit cooler then I liked today so I mostly dropped trees. When I have a chance I will go back and slice the trees into rounds on top of the snow with a smaller pair of snowshoes. Cutting on snow keeps the blade up out the dirt and the snow tends to support the logs so they do not pinch. A lot of the bigger ones have rotten cores and usually carpenter ants so its usually best to let them layout in the cold cut up into rounds and they usually vacate the wood (sometimes not).
So am I the only person who chain saws with snowshoes?
The definite issue with large snowshoes is that they are mostly straight line travel. Not really suited well for a quick getaway from a cut. If its a tricky cut I leave it, I had a few leaner's today. They are cut and the wind will probably take them down before spring. I will bring some rigging to deal with them later if they do not come down.
It was bit cooler then I liked today so I mostly dropped trees. When I have a chance I will go back and slice the trees into rounds on top of the snow with a smaller pair of snowshoes. Cutting on snow keeps the blade up out the dirt and the snow tends to support the logs so they do not pinch. A lot of the bigger ones have rotten cores and usually carpenter ants so its usually best to let them layout in the cold cut up into rounds and they usually vacate the wood (sometimes not).
So am I the only person who chain saws with snowshoes?
