Rope Tow

A good friend and neighbor, Jay McIntyre and I started cutting the lift line for the rope tow this past Saturday.  We got a good early start meeting up at 7am.  Instead of hiking up and over the ridge we loaded our saws and fuel into the truck and drove around to the base of the tow.  The tow can be easily accessed from a VAST/VASA 4-wheel trail that passes by near bottom of the hill.  The bottom section of the slope is choked with saplings such as striped maple, beech and black birch.  The previous landowner had the bottom half of 

the slope logged after the '98 ice storm.  The upper half of the slope has a lot of nice sugar maples with reasonably good tree canopy that keeps the under growth to a minimum.  Due to the high number of saplings, the going at first was slow.  Jay pointed out that you just get stuck in one spot, cutting for a little while before moving uphill.  As we worked our way up, the woods naturally started to thin out making for less cutting on our part.

Here is a picture of the tow line near the bottom of the hill.

We cut about a 3rd of the way up in 3 hours.

Here is Jay refueling.  He has probably the best gas container out there - a one gallon Maple jug.

Looking down the hill.  We left some of the big trees alone for now.  When needed we'll use the trees (instead of poles) to hold the return line wheels.

Looking up the hill from about a third of the way up - this is where we left off for the day.

Off to a good start!

Jay found an old hay tedder that was hauled behind a horse back in the day.  The steel wheels are about 3' in diameter and have a nice groove for the rope to settle into.  We figure it should work for our bull wheels at the top and bottom of the tow.

Busted box scraper...

I managed to bend the top hitch support on the box scraper pretty good the other day.  I noticed that it got a little bent after backing into a tree.  Oops..  It's bound to happen when navigating tight spaces in the woods.  The box was still useable and I figured it might bend itself back into place (as long as I don't back into a tree again). Well.. that didn't work out.  Each time the shanks hit a rock or root it would compress the top hitch support even more.  Eventually the box was at such a high angle it couldn't even collect or drag dirt.  Getting the mangled box off was a bit tricky.  I couldn't put it down completely or lift it as it would hit the back tractor tire.  I ended up un-threading the top hitch too far (while attempting to set it down) that it popped off.  The box pivoted down with the shanks slamming into the tires.  Luckily I was standing out of the way and the shanks somehow didn't puncture the back tire.  That was a bit lucky..

I loaded up the box onto the trailer and brought it over to Mike's house.  Mike is a good friend of ours and is also a great welder.  He gave me a hard time for being hard on equipment but he was up for the task.  I didn't snap a picture of the box all damaged up but here is what it looked like after Mike made it 'Angus Proof' (as he called it).  It's definitely much stronger than it was.

I realized, after looking at other box scrapers online such as John Deere's, the original design was definitely lacking a solid support compared to others.

 

I've been collecting rocks to add to the stonewall.  Picking rocks one by one is starting to get old the but the wall is almost done.  On the flipside it's a great way to get the trails clear of rocks.

The retaining wall.

 

Collecting stones.  One by one. 

The lower loop of the ski trail with fewer rocks.

More rocks to pick up here..

Galen and I collecting small rocks around the yard.

We finally got the septic mound all raked and seeded.  Grass is starting to grow which is a really nice as a muddy yard and a playful dog makes for a mess in the house.  Here is a picture of the mound and stone wall so far on Memorial Day.

On Memorial Day weekend we got snow.  Yes, that's right.. snow.  It accumulated 2-3 inches overnight.  It was snowing for two days with most of the snow melting off immediately.  It wasn't quite enough to ski on in our yard at 2,200' ft.

At about 3,000' ft or higher there was 6-10".  Here is a picture looking south towards the Coolidge Range.  Killington was open that day with just barely enough man made snow on one trail called superstar.  The natural snow didn't add more skiable trails but the trails were pretty well covered.  It's a bit odd to see green trees with snow covered mtns in the distance.

Powder hound

Here is a short video of Kricket and Tappy in the Conference room.

 

 

 

I love seeing dogs run through deep powder.  They must be having more fun than us skiing.