Mike Pearson's Adventures on a Pale Blue Dot

A Fathers day weekend roadtrip with my son and daughter up Hwy 1 and then over to Lillooet BC. Nice warm, dry weather there to help peel away the chill of the less than stellar weather down in Vancouver. The airport was busier than last year when Brian Fitzpatrick and I went up there. For some reason there was a cluster of spray bar equipped helicopters. I had to do a bit of research to figure out the type of machine that we were looking at. There are 2 different manufacturers represented on the field. The most challenging for me was what turned out to be Hiller UH-12's that were converted to turbine power. I found out ( 2 minutes ago ) that the turbine model is called a UH-12E3T, and apparently they pack more weight than any other light turbine helicopter on the market. Update. ( later that same day ) I read the Lillooet newspaper that I brought back. The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is spraying 5390 hectares of forest with Foray48b to fight against the Western S...

A bit of chainsaw work and hacking  gave us a better view of these machines , than we had last year. The 892 has obvious wear and tear...likely ended up as a tail-hold machine for a grapple yarder. The TD-20 looks pretty good, but perhaps had some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure...or maybe it just wasn't the tool for the job in a changing business world. Video tour of the machines S tanding on top of the Madill...looking over at the TD-20 and 892 I think that ol d hulk was a D-8 at some point the stripp ed out C at View from the office Standing on the TD-20...looking over at the Madill/Mack LRSW

Several decades ago, someone drove this Timberjack skidder into it's last parking spot....hit the kill-switch and walked away. Maybe the nature of the business changed or the ambition wilted...could be that it was too much trouble to keep running...but there it rests. The forest that it was meant to harvest, grew up around it in an attempt to devour the old enemy. It certainly looks like a good candidate for a rebuild if the right person was so inclined. But then again, it's just one of the dozens of old West Coast logging relics that are parked on this property. Here is a video tour of a section of the property full of abandoned machines and trucks....it ends at the skidder And...a video tour of the 550 Timberjack Zoom Zoom Fitz tries it on for size