Felling trees means removing trees with grapple trucks – and neither task is easy. The felling itself must be done through careful planning and with expertise; once the trunk hits the ground, it must be removed in a way that is as safe and as economically feasible as possible for both loggers and the environment. As winter weather arrives, it brings with it the added difficulty of transporting the cut trees under possible adverse conditions.
Difficulties
Cold weather makes tree-cutting even more difficult than usual. Loggers must struggle with obscured and slippery terrain; they must constantly be on guard against heavy snow falling from tree branches. Frozen wood is brittle during colder weather and has a tendency to snap quite easily. It is hard to tell when this may happen and which way the trees may fall. When encountering a fallen log, it is difficult to know from just looking at it how long it has been there as it could be frozen to the ground and covered with large amounts of snow, making it very difficult to remove.
Tree Removal
Removing fallen trees or big branches without the help of heavy-duty mechanical equipment means it must be cut into smaller, more manageable pieces and manually loaded onto trucks to be removed from the area. This can result in increased work hours and expose loggers to additional health risks, such as physical exertion or slipping while carrying a heavy object.
Obstacle Removal
Aside from trees, there are many other obstacles in the woods. The winter landscape could conceal: large boulders; stumps with extensive root networks; solid frozen blocks of twigs, dirt and debris; and random objects dumped in the woods by people such as old furniture or machinery. The manual removal of such objects poses a health risk to loggers, which means that machine assistance may be necessary.
Obstacles like these are rarely found in clear terrain and driving equipment into the dense woods is not recommended and sometimes impossible. Provided that the obstacle is not located too far from the road, grapple trucks can reach with long booms from the stable base of the road directly to the object in question, thereby avoiding hazards and saving the loggers valuable time.
Vehicle Operation
Grapple trucks are heavy-duty vehicles with a mounted grapple loader. The loader consists of a hydro-mechanical arm with a grapple claw or bucket attached to the end. The arm is able to rotate on an axis and is jointed, enabling it to reach the ground and lift heavy objects with ease. Many models have adjustable boom lengths and can rotate 360 degrees, allowing for great flexibility as well as the ability to reach objects at a distance. Depending on the model, these trucks can load waste into its own trailer or the trailer of a separate truck. Grapple trucks are usually operated by just one person.
Vehicle Types
Different truck models allow for different ways to dispose of the load being carried. Rear-mounted trailers can be detached and replaced, just like normal trucks. Other models use cable rollers to roll the loads from the back. There are even some of these vehicles that are designed with their own dump bodies, which can be unloaded by the same grapple mechanism used to load them.
This heavy-duty equipment is a valuable device in the forest. It can be used to remove large, heavy trees that have been felled along with any other obstacles that may be present on the roads and pathways being used. There are several makes and models available depending upon business needs. The manual removal of trees, branches and other items from the woods would be a difficult, if not impossible task, making grapple trucks a vital tool in forestry management!
