Chip South by Quad

Wayne and I watched road building being done by Western Forest Products along the southwest shore of Powell Lake. We wondered what it would be like to ride on a brand new road and see the forest before logging begins.

After the road work was complete, we took our quads south from Hole in the Wall to the new Western Forest Products logging area called Chippewa South, Chip South for short. The barge ramp and dock are located towards the middle of the new road.

To the north, the second growth trees are large and robust.  This section of road is about 1.5 kilometres long. To the south, the growing conditions have generated trees of smaller girth. This section is a little over 3 kilometres long.  Small blocks will be logged above and below the road in the future.

The trees cut down during the road building process were stacked along the road, ready for removal. They will be trucked to the log skid, dumped into Powell Lake, gathered in log booms, and towed to the south end of the lake. From here, they will be loaded onto trucks once again for a short ride to the ocean, and then a long tow to Vancouver.

The road was so wide, Wayne and I could ride side by side. That's because it's designed for the oversized or "fat" off-road logging trucks. Here's a YouTube video by clearcutter01 of a Powell River "fat truck" in action.

You can see why they need such wide logging roads. -- Margy