Vintage logging – Tree Climbing

Each Saturday morning I review 10 vintage logging, forestry and saw milling photos. This week’s review of vintage logging is about the men who climbed the trees. I didn’t have 10 photos so there’s a few random images as well.

An unidentified man at top of spar tree with top of tree falling to right; unidentified man moving away from tree toward railroad tracks at right.

Sanford holding onto tree with both hands as top of tree falls away to right; axe falling away to left.

By the 1920s, many logging companies rigged cables and pulleys on tall spar trees to haul logs to loading sites. Once a spar tree was chosen, a high rigger scrambled up the tree, cut off the branches and the top, and attached pulleys and cables. To help him climb, he wore a special belt and spikes on his legs and boots. It might take him thirty minutes to climb a 180-foot tree .
This photo shows a high rigger on the trunk of a spar tree. He’s wearing his climbing belt and spikes, and he carries an axe to cut off the branches and top the tree. His saw probably hangs at the end of the dangling rope.

A man with climbing gear standing on log at base of spar tree.

Two typical lumberjacks standing at the door. One is holding his felling axe, the other is showing off his cross-cut saw and his clay pipe. They are probably two of Richard McGregor’s sons.

View of lumber men loading big logs onto a logging truck. Siskiyou County, California.
Rights Information: Feb 28 2019 Special permission granted by the owning institution, California State University, Chico, CA, US, to WoodchuckCanuck.com, for use of this image for historical logging special collection review. Source: http://www.cdlib.org/