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A way of life on the line Shifting markets and tightening laws have transformed the timber industry. By PAUL FATTIG of the Mail Tribune When logger Mike Vitto looks out over the steep ridge near Myrtle Creek, he sees more than a logging operation. He sees a way of life in the turn of logs being hauled to the landing by the skyline cable system swinging some 1,500 feet across the deep canyon. He sees rugged tradition in the three choker setters scrambling in the brush to quickly set the short choker cables for the next turn. Their red hardhats look like large ladybugs in the distance. And he sees an Oregon lifestyle at the hands of the timber faller felling trees ahead of the main crew. Vitto and his crew represent an Oregon that most Oregonians have never seen. Yet it�s a state whose future is threatened by the changing mores of the outside world. "Loggers don�t like a lot of regimentation in their lives," said Vitto, the owner of Gyppo Inc., a logging company based in Grants Pass. "They�re independent cusses. "Part of the reason I�m out here is because I don�t have to deal with a lot of people," he added. "That�s the way I like it. I�ve been in the white-collar world. It�s dog-eat-dog." Not that the logging business doesn�t have plenty of bite in its bark, he cautioned. There is the fluctuating lumber market, the battle for logs, the inclement weather and ever-tightening environmental laws, all on top of being "poor-mouthed" over the years by those opposed to logging, he said. "You really have to have a lot of balls to go out and do this," he said. "There are no guarantees. You have to be aggressive, resilient and innovative to get by. And that transcends the whole crew." Vitto, 53, a 1965 graduate of Illinois Valley High School who started his company with little more than a chainsaw some 20 years ago, was reared in a valley where logging was once king of the economy. Today, the firm � "gyppo" is an old logging term for a company that doesn�t own timberlands but contracts out � seldom logs in the valley where Vitto first cut timber. The 100-acre parcel a dozen miles east of Myrtle Creek is owned by the Eugene-based Seneca-Jones Co. Another Gyppo crew is logging on Boise Cascade Corp. land near Talent. "We�ve been lucky enough to keep going year round," Vitto said. "But we have to travel now to do it." Logging with less waste The firm, which employs some two dozen loggers during the lean winter months and more come summer, originally logged largely on federal forestland, harvesting trees that sometimes averaged five feet across the stump. Now it harvests mainly on private land, and usually smaller-diameter trees. "When I first started in this business, setting chokers, that small stuff right there, that would be trash," he said of logs less than four inches in diameter. "We�d just leave that. "Now we process it all and ship it," he added. "Nothing is wasted." The logger began working in the woods full time out of high school, then cut back to the summers while earning a bachelor�s degree in journalism in 1975 at the University of Oregon. He worked as a print journalist in the bright lights of Las Vegas for several years before returning to Oregon and the logging woods. "I was a knee-jerk liberal until I got up around 30," he explained. "I had spent all my life thinking money wasn�t cool. It finally dawned on me that the reason for that was that I didn�t have any money." When he started in the business, he had a $250 Homelite chainsaw and a 1964 Plymouth station wagon barely worth the value of the saw. He began by cutting short logs for cedar posts, which he hauled in the Plymouth. "It was a tough car," he said. Now he has hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into equipment. "From that $250 saw, our machinery now costs $400,000 a pop," he said. Vitto stopped talking to watch a modern machine known as a danglehead processor gobble limbs and buck logs at 16 feet per second on the landing. "That�s a phenomenal piece of machinery," he said. "It takes off the limb and bucks the log at whatever length or diameter you want. "We�re taking logs down to two inches in diameter," he added. "That machine has a $20,000 computer in it which gives the operator diameter and length readouts." The operator is a chip off the old logging block. Ethan Vitto, 25, a 1993 graduate of Grants Pass High School, is his son. "I tried college for a couple of years, but I decided school wasn�t for me," the younger Vitto said during a break. "Getting up early in the morning is hard sometimes, but being out here, not having to deal with all the hubbub, it�s all worth it. "When I�m sitting up there in my cab, I�m thinking nobody has a better office view than I do," he added. "I get to look at this every day." He also serves as a chaser on the landing, which entails dashing out to unhook the choker cables when a bundle of logs arrives on the motorized carriage. "This is definitely what I�m going to do for a living," he said before climbing back into the cab. "We can keep the forests around for future generations, but we can also keep working in them. There�s a future here." "It�s a good life" Shovel operator Rob Box, 42, who also has Illinois Valley roots, is a bearlike fellow who has worked in the woods most of his adult life. He stood by a warming fire started early that morning when the crew arrived at daybreak. "I see the future as being about like it is now," he said. "I don�t think it�ll go back to like it was. But there is potential to keep working." Box, whose job calls for loading each log truck that pulls into the landing, is married with three daughters and a stepson. He also intends to stay in the woods. "I�m kind of a jack of all trades � master of none," he said. "I worked in the oil fields for awhile, but I�d rather log. I love logging, love the hard work. It�s a good life." When the big machines slumber, the whine of the timber faller�s chainsaw sings through the trees. Running the Stihl chainsaw with its 32-inch bar is Gary Lewis, 48, a 1971 graduate of Illinois Valley High School. He has been falling timber for 30 years, following the professional footsteps of his father. "My dad was a timber faller � he made a good living," he said. "My dad paid cash for most stuff. Of course, that was when new pickups were only $2,000." Like Ethan Vitto, he tried college after high school. But he also answered the call of the woods. "I even thought about doing something else a few years ago," he said. "But there aren�t a lot of options out there for someone in their mid-40s." Lewis lives in Prineville, where his wife, Patricia, works in hospital administration. They have three grown children. "It�s 254 miles to the job," he said. He spends his long work week at the site in a small travel trailer. He�s accompanied by a friendly black Labrador retriever he refers to as the "Falling Dog." The pooch keeps his distance when his master revs up the saw. Holding up both hands to show that he has all his digits, Lewis noted that he has never had a major accident. "I�m real careful and I�m lucky," he said. "You have to have both in conjunction, especially if you get into hardwood." Unlike the usually straight-growing softwood conifers, hardwood is brittle and grows into odd shapes, making it difficult to precisely predict which way it will fall, he said. "Even a small limb can knock the bejesus out of you," he said. "I know a lot of fallers who have been dinged by hardwood." Yet the dinged top of his hardhat looks like a crummy (transport vehicle) full of loggers did a tap dance on it. "I�m not sure how that happened," he said as he examined the hat. "It could have been a riggin� fit. "That�s when you start swearing and throwing stuff," he added. "Your veins stick out in your neck. That happens when you mash a $700 saw." Live and learn In his younger years, Lewis did his best to live up to the logging legend of hard drinking and hard living. "I used to go to bars to fight every weekend," he said. "I won them all until I was 35 or 36. Then I got my first ass-whipping. One of the bouncers in Prineville taught me a lesson." Waking the next morning, Lewis, who no longer goes to bars, figured it was time to hang up his fisticuffs. "I was hurting � I got to thinking I was too old for that," he said. He figures he has enough aches and pains from falling timber. "I have places that hurt," he said. "You sprain an ankle or pull a shoulder out of the socket, you just work with it if you are a Cave Junctionite." With that, the former Cave Junction resident burst out laughing. "If you don�t like pain, you�d better go do something else, maybe write for a living or something," he quipped before revving up his saw again. Falling Dog quickly trotted off. As Mike Vitto climbed back up the mountain to his pickup truck before heading off to check on another logging show, he talked about the future of the lifestyle he and his employees have chosen. "Like all things, the pendulum swings one way, then the other," he said. "We�ve had eight years with an administration that is very pro-environment. It�ll change a little now. "But it�ll probably never swing back to the way it was and it probably shouldn�t," he added. "I don�t think there is any denying that we were overcutting. But we sure as hell aren�t today." The Myrtle Creek area logging site, which was originally logged about 40 to 50 years ago, is a good example of today�s logging activities, he noted. Few of the trees are more than two feet in diameter. The site will be replanted once the logging operation is completed. Tough laws in Oregon The skyline system employs full suspension of the logs, avoiding the use of skid roads. It also protects the buffer on both sides of the seasonal stream flowing in the belly of the canyon. The cable forms a loop reaching 1,750 feet from the landing to the farthest corner of the unit. Like most loggers, he figures there are ample environmental safeguards in effect. They are leaving two "wildlife trees" per acre � trees that are left to provide wildlife habitat, he said. A buffer protects both sides of the stream below, he added. "Environmentally, Oregon�s statutes are as tough as any," he said. "They monitor you all the time." He also figures that Americans need to look closely at themselves before castigating loggers and others who harvest natural resources. "We are only 5 or 6 percent of the world�s population, yet we use 40 percent or so of the world�s resources," he observed. Logging ought to be done in the United States, where there are strong environmental laws, instead of in Third World countries without such laws, he said. "The environmental community likes to rail against corporate greed, but what they are doing is regulating out of business the little people and making it better for the corporations they hate the most," he said. "So the big players continue with the concentration of wealth getting into fewer and fewer hands." But he expects the logging tradition to survive, along with a few gyppo outfits. "There is a future in the industry � we�re still a wood-using nation," he said. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.