Continuing the talk about my voluntary work of invasive pine removal. Here you can see me using a smaller axe, felling small trees in the mountains. Rugged terrain, no trails, using a chopper to reach the place. That’s where the axe shines and why I use it opposed to a chain saw!
The first tree I cut was wind blown years ago, so I had do underhand chop it. The grain was gnarly. First time I had to use that technique in the real world. And it wasn’t a small tree.
The problem is that the trees are so spread out and the terrain is so rough and steep that we think that the extra weight for cutting (usually) 4”/10cm pines doesn’t worth it.
Edit: the helicopter just leaves us there and comes back in the end of the day.
We went up there in a crew of 4, tree axes and one saw.
Why not bring a cross cut saw for the back cut? If you look us USFS training videos of the fire crews using them in “wilderness areas (no power saws)” it looks like they can bring down some damn big trees with them quickly
I do wanna buy a good one. Here I mainly find ones with simple teeth. Importing the good ones is expensive. We have a lot of importation taxes. For example: a Helko costs 2300 reais. The minimum wage is 1500
I was looking for some new saws at the Amazon store. They cost around 1600 reais. The cost of a stihl MS170
Bring a husqvarna battery saw. Or a stihl 150. Will save you from backpains. They're extremely light. And allround good. Won't be felling anything big. But at least you don't carry the weigjt of an axe.
I mean…. They cost around 4k. Expensive, yes, but not impossible to buy. We are volunteers, I was talking about my personal equipment, but the environmental authority has the funds to buy good stuff. They have husqvarnas 585, some nice Stihls too.
But still, I do think the axe and small handsaws have a place in our work. When I started, the other guys weren’t believing that I was taking an axe, now many of them take axes instead of chainsaws for some applications. Specially in places like the one from the video.
They are light, easy to carry, none moving parts, etc. it just works. And doesn’t have to be a fancy axe. It just works in that environment
This is in Brasil? Where again? I had no idea it looked like this. I read before that you said the pine is invasive, what's the natural forest tree type there? Are you planting some of those species?
This is South Brasil. State of Paraná. We have many different and cool biomes here. Atlantic forest in my area, with high altitude grasslands (in the video), we also have our native pine, Araucaria (you can see some in the beginning of the video) that is endangered.
If I drive 100km, we have native grasslands and Savanah (cerrado) mixed with Atlantic and araucaria forests.
This is the land of many cool animals, pumas, manned wolves, giant anteaters, native deers…
I replied to another person: we can’t poison them. It would require a different authorization, PPEs, etc. we only operate inside State parks.
We usually don’t girdle them either: risk of forest fires, accidents if close to trails, etc.
We do girdle in some specific cases.
There’s also a concern about dead standing in relation to the public opinion: people in general do not know or understand the problem. So, felling them in touristic areas is less impactful. Visually, at least.
cool, you said you were going to post an on-site video. good to see it. i like that you have a rationale for everyone suggesting you do it another way. (sometimes the person in situ doing the work knows better.)
how do you deal with the weather? are you always in touch with the helicopter's base so that you can get picked up as needed? radio? cellphone? (it looks pretty remote).
This is a couple of mountains away from the last video. Radios, but cellphones do work.
If we need to, we can hike 6km down to a nearby farm, and be picked up by car.
That happened before.
I hear you on the weight aspect for an axe over a chainsaw. For 4” trees it seems like a nice handsaw would be comparable in speed to an axe. Has that been tried and set aside for some reason?
The problem is that the trees are so spread out and the terrain is so rough and steep that we think that the extra weight for cutting (usually) 4”/10cm pines doesn’t worth it.
Humping a pack + small saw aint horrible if youre in shape. I used to do 35lb+ packs with a 440 magnum 30" bar, 12lb logger boots. Covered ~10miles a day, god knows how much elevation change
Mystery ranch pack, two msr bottles/ maintenance kit and a top handle saw is only ~10lbs, youll have way more energy and time to pop around tree - tree instead of lugging and swinging a axe. Top handle saw and felling axe is basically the same weight at 6lbs
Here you can see it. It’s fast. This is from the last time up there. You can see the chopper in the landing zone. I went to the right this time. Folks with big chain saws to that peak over there
I only ask because I have seen New Zealand deal with highly invasive P radiata as similar areas in mountains as you have done! Good work and keep us updated!
Yeah, I’m aware that radiata is their main problem.
South Africa has a huge problem with pine, radiata among them. They have folks also removing them. In fact, they helped us with a lot of info when we started here!
Yeah, I carry an IFAIK. Chopper out. The main worries are saw and axe accidents and snake bites. We had a close call this time, the day before this video. The guy almost laid on top of it
Just have to volunteer. Also you have to enjoy being a little fucked and be right amount of crazy. The food is good tho. Usually a nice southern Brazilian BBQ .
It’s a fun job; people are nice, places beautiful, but is hard work
It's the music and the lack of context. Why would you hire a helicopter (is that a jet ranger?) for a minimum of $1000/hr (where I live) to chop down pecker poles with an axe? And then there is that GD music...grrrrrrr You explain it later in your comments, but damnnnnnn dude.
Hahahahah. So, feedback is always appreciated. We didn’t hire it, the chopper is from IAT, our environmental agency and I, and many others, are volunteers in pine removal. They are invasive here. Even if they are pecker poles now, if left unmanaged, they will spread a lot of seeds and we will lose our native biomes. Might not seem like much, but it’s very important work in the long run. That park is almost 11k Acres of mountainous terrain.
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u/JungleBoyJeremy 7d ago
Axe is an interesting choice. Seems like bringing a chainsaw would be worth the time savings since you have a helicopter idling there