Snow & start dates...

[backcountrysister]

It seems our start dates for the coast has changed it seems by the day...whats the latest for everyone out there?
March 14th.. for us

[Scooter]

We are supposed to start on May 3rd outside of Vanderhoof. All of our supervisors at Folklore have already been warned that the startup dates might have to be delayed by as much as a week if the snow doesn't melt quickly. The levels are (unofficially) the highest in about thirty years in some areas. Everyone is watching things quite closely right now, but I'm guessing that we'll get a final decision in three weeks. My camp had eight snow days last year, so I'm pretty sure all of the vets would rather just bump the start back by a week instead of dealing with those headaches again.

[ryguy]

March 14th, Johnstone strait.....good luck to all....

[Evergreen]

You're going to need lots of luck and ground below 200 meters to get to work in Johnstone Strait by March 14th. The snow line in the Campbell River area is right around 150 meters. Our crew there is starting March 21st - 3 weeks late. There's a similar story on the south Island with major delays there. The weather here has finally changed to warm and rainy.

It's pretty early to be predicting anything for the interior as there's lots of time for more snow at elevation. It has been very snowy in the Kootenays but it has been interspersed with rain events and there isn't a big snowpack up in them thar hills. I'm hearing predictions of right on schedule or at most a week's delay.

[ryguy]

Yep...we'll try for the 18th. Only about 30% of our ground is open. This start-time is about 3 weeks later for me than any other season in about 20 years.....a bit frustrating!

[zilla]

Were in Powell River and already planting, but the blocks are almost at sea level, only got pushed a week.

[r0ckMachine]

Around Agassiz, started yesterday!

[Scooter]

Why am I not a coastal planter? Why?
I need to get back to the bush ...

[RPF]

Was suppose to start March 1, but it's been snowing almost everyday since. In hindsight I should have started mid January when everything was wide open and before this late snowfall (I would have had 3/4 of my project done by now).

On the bright side though, Mt Washington now has 670 cm of snow making for some fantastic skiing...

[MiddleAgeMayhem]

Yeehah! Finally starting on March 18th.

A nice coastal tour:

Jackson Bay
Port Alberni
Port Alice

Good luck all.

[Bostock]

Was suppose to start March 1, but it's been snowing almost everyday since. In hindsight I should have started mid January when everything was wide open and before this late snowfall (I would have had 3/4 of my project done by now).

On the bright side though, Mt Washington now has 670 cm of snow making for some fantastic skiing...

wholly ef. it only took half a decade or more for an RPF to figure out current weather patterns. no offence but this has been on my mind for years. you should talk to more backcountry skier type planters about weather trends.

I'm tired of foresters thinking they are weather savy. my friends and I spend 300 day a year looking at weather models and making calls based on whats being forecast. grab a qualified dirtbag, they know.

the only real issue is convincing your work force to work through jan- feb, take march off and come back mid april or may. if you put a contract together which looks like that let me know who is working it for you, I want in.

on the bright side, pretty happy not to be in the bush this right now. good luck folks.

[RPF]

wholly ef. it only took half a decade or more for an RPF to figure out current weather patterns. no offence but this has been on my mind for years. you should talk to more backcountry skier type planters about weather trends.

I'm tired of foresters thinking they are weather savy. my friends and I spend 300 day a year looking at weather models and making calls based on whats being forecast. grab a qualified dirtbag, they know.

the only real issue is convincing your work force to work through jan- feb, take march off and come back mid april or may. if you put a contract together which looks like that let me know who is working it for you, I want in.

on the bright side, pretty happy not to be in the bush this right now. good luck folks.

For many years, we use to do a January - mid Feb plant and start up again late March. However, in recent years (with the economy the way it has been), this start and stop scenario started causing some major headaches for our contractor. It was actually our contractor's idea to delay starting early to avoid the snowy conditions and the headaches that went along with it. It doesn't matter to me when they start as long as the trees are all in the ground by the end of April.

p.s. Yes I am very aware of the weather patterns, I've been keeping a journal for about 25 years on the coast. My predictions for the year:
- snow on and off through to April 10,
- relatively cool/moist weather mid April to end of June,
- mixed bag of weather with some warm/dry days intermixed with wet/cooler days from July to first week of August,
- very hot dry conditions August 4 - 18 - book your summer vacation around this time,
- then warm comfortable days (showery/sunny days) through to Sept 20, followed by a return to wet/cool weather to the end of the year.

I'd be curious to see how this agrees with your "forecast".

[Screefhead]

Was suppose to start March 1, but it's been snowing almost everyday since. In hindsight I should have started mid January when everything was wide open and before this late snowfall (I would have had 3/4 of my project done by now).

On the bright side though, Mt Washington now has 670 cm of snow making for some fantastic skiing...

wholly ef. it only took half a decade or more for an RPF to figure out current weather patterns. no offence but this has been on my mind for years. you should talk to more backcountry skier type planters about weather trends.

I'm tired of foresters thinking they are weather savy. my friends and I spend 300 day a year looking at weather models and making calls based on whats being forecast. grab a qualified dirtbag, they know.

the only real issue is convincing your work force to work through jan- feb, take march off and come back mid april or may. if you put a contract together which looks like that let me know who is working it for you, I want in.

on the bright side, pretty happy not to be in the bush this right now. good luck folks.

Unless they live there, good luck finding planters for the coast in May once the interior contracts start up.

[SwampDonkey]

Cutting brush could be anywhere from April 15th onward here in NB. Depends on how quick stuff dries up. Last year was around April 21st. The snow is going fast here now, so it's not far away. I've planted trees on my woodlot April 11 before, here in NB. I plan on transplanting some spruce by the first week of April. ;D Filling in a grassy barn yard, nursery seedlings wouldn't have a chance in that cover, plus the wild ones are free. I have planted quite few there already and 99% survival.

[Bostock]

I came a cross a little harsh. should tone it down a bit. or not post when I'm drinking

I dont know the coast as well as you. keeping a journal for 25 years is impressive. your reasoning for start dates is appreciated. normally foresters just look at me like I'm dumb when I ask them why we dont start earlier. I would say I agree with your predictions for the most part. picking dates is risky. but I'm sure you have the data to back it up. for me a forecast is a lot more general. like I figure there is always one good solid high lasting around 1 to 2 weeks in feb to be banked. march generally is a mixed bag with lots of snow/rain and weather that cant be counted on. april through june will see snow up high. july is always a mystery to me, maybe because I'm often in random parts of the province. but it can be scorching hot like early july last year, or it can rain every day. august hot with mixed showers. sept to mid oct can be hot and dry.

Unless they live there, good luck finding planters for the coast in May once the interior contracts start up

agreed.

[TheHamsterizer]

I came a cross a little harsh. should tone it down a bit. or not post when I'm drinking

I dont know the coast as well as you. keeping a journal for 25 years is impressive. your reasoning for start dates is appreciated. normally foresters just look at me like I'm dumb when I ask them why we dont start earlier. I would say I agree with your predictions for the most part. picking dates is risky. but I'm sure you have the data to back it up. for me a forecast is a lot more general. like I figure there is always one good solid high lasting around 1 to 2 weeks in feb to be banked. march generally is a mixed bag with lots of snow/rain and weather that cant be counted on. april through june will see snow up high. july is always a mystery to me, maybe because I'm often in random parts of the province. but it can be scorching hot like early july last year, or it can rain every day. august hot with mixed showers. sept to mid oct can be hot and dry.

Unless they live there, good luck finding planters for the coast in May once the interior contracts start up

agreed.

Wow, 300 days a year looking at weather patterns and this is the best you can do... Face it buddy, you got owned. Ask more backcountry skiers about weather patterns? Someone did a few years ago:

http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=32695

No real info. I think I'll stick with the guy with 25 years of data who's job it is to know this stuff. I guess foresters actually are weather savvy...

[r0ckMachine]

off for a week.... still too much snow... we planted all the low elevation block without snow. I guess it is better to start a little later and no down time!

[SwampDonkey]

I thought you had record snows in BC this year? That would tell me to delay. ;)

[Bostock]

ham your right I guess. I was also finally given a reason for for not planting in the dry months as opposed to starting every year in historic wet cool months. but I mean find me another forester who keep weather records?

but I guess the internet is all about winning ;)

[Scooter]

I feel like about two or three thousand planters are about to become very annoyed as their start dates are bumped back by between 2 and 7 days. Way too much snow everywhere.

FWIW, I've had a flood of vets emailing me in the past 18 hours asking if I can accommodate extra planters for a few days at the start. I can't. The snow is a problem for us too.

I've even heard stories about start dates at the END of May. WTF?

[SwampDonkey]

I think it's a slow spring everywhere, heck they are getting snow storms still in the mid western states. It did warm up yesterday to 18C, and expected to be wet the rest of the week, but not all that warm. Although it is 7 degrees before sun up today. Still I had to build a fire, the first in 3 days. And it's hot as hades to in here. :D :D

[Mike]

Hey Scooter, is your camps start going to be delayed due to snow?

[Scooter]

At the moment, no, we're still on for the same date. But our initial contract is probably going to be a few days less, and we're going to move to Alberta very quickly. I'm going to figure this out for sure on Friday and then email everyone in camp, but I'm proceeding on the assumption that it's business as usual for us, even though our first camp might have a lot of snow in the tenting areas. When I last talked to the office today, they were trying to make sure we could still go with our original startup and they were adjusting on the back side instead, although of course everything is subject to change.

[Tupperfan]

Pretty nice here around Fort Assiniboine, Alberta. We have some residual snow in the shadows on seismic lines, but nothing on the blocks. There's a bunch more on the hills north of Swan Hills.

We're flying in and setting up camp on Saturday and starting planting on Sunday, as planned.

[L'Amour]

Hope you're not moving to Alberta too soon, Scooter. Haven't heard any official word on our start date being pushed back, but given that we're supposed to move into camp in a couple days and Slave Lake is presently a ghost town on account of the fact everything around it is on fire, I think we might be seeing a non-snow-related delay this season...

[Scooter]

Actually, we've been planting between Whitecourt and Fox Creek for a few days now, no snow problems. But we are a bit worried about possibly getting shut down because of the fire situation. I just saw a photo of the Ford dealership in Slave Lake - crazy. Folklore does a bit of work up there, not sure how it will affect us yet.

[Tupperfan]

Actually, we've been planting between Whitecourt and Fox Creek for a few days now, no snow problems. But we are a bit worried about possibly getting shut down because of the fire situation. I just saw a photo of the Ford dealership in Slave Lake - crazy. Folklore does a bit of work up there, not sure how it will affect us yet.

I was in Slave Lake 6 days before the fires to meet with my helicopter provider. We moved our camp and first load of trees in with a chopper and then, of course, it became impossible to do so, not only because they are based out of there, but also because every aircraft was mobilized by the government for the fires. It was especially heartbreaking to call my contact there and talk business while homes, lives and a whole community is affected.

Got to find a new solution to bring in food, water and trees, which meant an additional day off as the swamp machine we got is slow as fuck. On the other hand, I got to buy mud slingers, paddles for the quad wheels. Those things are quite miraculous and I was able to go through shit I wouldn't never dare to with a load on the quad...on second gear, and I never got stuck! It's pricey, but I highly recommend that stuff!

As for fires, I reported my camp's position (in between Swan Hills and Fort Assiniboine) to both the RCMP and local SRD. Got to report some smoke 3 days ago to SRD, seems like it was smoke remants of a fire they successfully put down as a chopper was sent to investigate but no further action was taken.

Let's just say it's pretty crazy up here and we need to take every precautions we can and stay on our guard. Slave Lake is the perfect example of how fast things can happen...

[Scooter]

I believe that the whole area is a no-fly zone now this evening after a chopper crash into Lesser Slave Lake six or seven hours ago, with one fatality. We can't fly tomorrow, and we're using a different company and we're south of Swan Hills.

[Tupperfan]

It was a tragic week in Slave Lake. This pilot's death was the cherry on top of the shit cake...

We did use a heli once this week, smaller than our usual needs, as our heli company got out of their way to find us a Blue Ridge-based replacement to help us out. But we now have two Haglund tracked vehicles and we'll most likely stick to them unless they are called on fire jobs, which is, thanks to the rain and cold weather of the last few days, a little less likely. It comes with a driver, it isn't too slow and can get a decent load of trees on board or a whole 14 people crew. It does fuck with muskeg-filled seismic lines though, and therefore affects our quads access, yet they are efficient and cheaper than our use of heli would have required.

Scooter, I'm also somewhat south of Swan Hills on hwy 33(about ten clicks in from the Centre of Alberta Natural reserve), whereabouts are you?

[SwampDonkey]

Are you guys using Sat. phones for internet or do you stay at a town?

[Scooter]

Tupper, I'm at the Chickadee Beehive Burner until about June 6th or 7th. West of Whitecourt, about 20kms, you can see the burned just north of the highway when you're going down into the valley that has Chickadee Creek at the bottom. Stop in for a coffee if you're driving by some evening. I'm almost never in camp when the planters are out on the blocks, except for occasionally passing through quickly.

We're able to use helicopters again. Had a 206 for three days earlier this week, now doing ground ops for two days, and then we've got about four more days of flying starting Saturday but I think we'll have an A-Star which will speed things up. And I've got a rookie crew that I'm leaving out of the heli work, because they aren't efficient enough, and that's definitely speeding up the flight roster for the rest of camp.

SwampDonkey: No satellite phones for internet, way too expensive. We just use a conventional satellite dish system. It's fairly cheap - once you buy the dish, I think the usage is only about $99 per month, although I don't know if they pay that for four months or year-round. Not the fastest though ... the very best speeds I've seen have been about a third of ADSL speeds, and that's only when nobody else in camp is using it at the same time. We have a wireless router so everyone can get it in the mess tent.

[dreamofcream]

To get back to the original point, it's snowing right now on my blocks south of kelowna. I hate unpredictable mountain weather.

[ryguy]

Yep......snowed out in Kelowna......again.

[SwampDonkey]

Well it hasn't snowed in weeks, but until recently it sure has been wet and cool. Today was the first warm shower this spring, it actually feels muggy and not a damp cold where a fire is required in the stove. :D

[Tupperfan]

Are you guys using Sat. phones for internet or do you stay at a town?

I'm browsing from my laptop by tethering to my blackberry, which is in turn used in conjunction with a signal booster plugged on one of my quads/argo/whatever's around. If your service provider is Telus or Bell, you'll rarely have absolutely no signal in most places where we plant in Alberta. Sat phone is therefore used only for absolute emergencies. Aside from work reasons, I rarely use the internet while in the bush, except for a quick glance here and there (like to learn about Winnipeg getting a team back!), and on days off (like today, which is a in-camper, given our isolation)

Tupper, I'm at the Chickadee Beehive Burner until about June 6th or 7th. West of Whitecourt, about 20kms, you can see the burned just north of the highway when you're going down into the valley that has Chickadee Creek at the bottom. Stop in for a coffee if you're driving by some evening. I'm almost never in camp when the planters are out on the blocks, except for occasionally passing through quickly.

We're able to use helicopters again. Had a 206 for three days earlier this week, now doing ground ops for two days, and then we've got about four more days of flying starting Saturday but I think we'll have an A-Star which will speed things up. And I've got a rookie crew that I'm leaving out of the heli work, because they aren't efficient enough, and that's definitely speeding up the flight roster for the rest of camp.

Thanks for the invitation, Scooter, but I probably won't be able to visit. Due to our isolation, being in a "fly-in" camp without helis, I only go out for fuel and a few necessary errands, but these usually lead me to Barrhead. I also spend most of my time on the blocks or doing anything (building a 5,000+ lbs capacity bridge with three other guys, unloading a refer by myself, various mechanical maintenance) we need to do to keep us planting. I'll be done this contract at about the same time as you, but you're just far enough out of the way to my next contract to make this highly improbable.

As for helicopters, our camp needed helis to move camp, water, food and trees in, but the blocks were relatively close to our two (originally planned) camp locations, so there was no heli needed aside from getting stuff in, as planters got Argo (and now Hagglund) rides between staging and camp whenever we need to get in or out, and they were supposed to walk to the blocks (camp itself is on a block) every day. With no guarantee that we could secure heli time every three days, we decided to abandon that option altogether (except to move camp out at the end of the contract) and got the two swamp machines. With some adjustments (no camp move, driving the planters to the farthest blocks with the machines and... lots of fuel runs!), the Hagglunds have done an amazing work to keep us afloat, at a pace not much slower than the original heli plan (We had to move forward days off two times when it felt like we wouldn't have a complete last day of the shift due to deliveries...And we got one extra day off waiting for our solution to the heli problem)...

But most importantly, the planters are making great money with minimal downtime!

Speaking of which, Dreamofcream, I feel like I'll eventually convince you to plant here again.

As for the weather, it's been pretty good here, with the usual cold nights and warm or hot days, and a day or two with some rain...

[Scooter]

Snowed out today outside Whitecourt. But it's only a foot, maybe it'll melt. Hahahahaha.

Fuck.

From the classic Northern Pikes album, "Snow In June" ...

[SwampDonkey]

Heck it has snowed in July near Calgary lots of times and also in western Newfoundland.

No sign of that white stuff here for a long while yet. ;)

[Scooter]

So what's the deal with snow delays now? Which companies are still working on spring trees, and when will these contracts be finished? I assume that everyone has gotten permission to plant a bit later than normal. I've had a lot of interest from planters who want to join my camp when their own companies are done, but the timing seems to be mostly in the July 5th-10th range. Normally, people are asking for work starting around June 20th-25th.

The spring delays haven't really affected my camp - we started into summer trees around June 9th. We actually got a few flakes of snow again in Alberta last week, although it turned back to rain almost right away.

On the snow theme, here's a video showing some penguin footage that I took in Antarctica last fall: