Gathering Wood in the Powder Horn Mountains

We drove up a bumpy dirt road, carting a flat trailer to carry back pieces of logs. There's been some cutting lately, and the smaller logs are scraped together in piles, along with a lot of limbs and trash that isn't useful to the lumbermill. Only a select amount of space is cleared, and it will probably become pastureland. It was quite a small area with lots of trees. Don't worry. Lots are left. The forest is managed.

Gail and Kirk were looking for two things. One, logs which would make nice firewood. Two, straight logs, preferably Lodgepole Pine, which would make nice supports for part of the new porch roof. We found both, luckily. I could tell that I was a true novice at this because I had pictured cutting the logs into burnable lengths, then splitting them at home. Kirk is smarter than that. He cuts the logs into liftable sizes and then hauls them home to cut at his leisure - should he ever have any.

The route to and from the area where we found the log piles was gorgeous. The light wasn't right, and the air was full of dust and moisture, so that many sights I would have loved photographing just wouldn't make nice pictures. However, here is a small record of the woodcutting, and some pictures of an aspen grove dropping it's leaves.


Piles of logs and brush


Kirk preparing to tie down the logs in the pick-up


Paul and Kirk working together to tie down logs


A distant view of all the wood we found, cut and loaded


A little closer


Paul being friendly, Gail and Kirk in back


Aspen grove








Aspen leaves on the ground

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