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.