It's been all go since the morning in a Swiss ravine. Every two minutes a helicopter circles over the canopy. STIHL accompanied a professional felling team to the slopes as they set about tackling the ultimate challenge in timber extraction: heli-logging.
Stefan, the pilot of the K-Max lift helicopter, inspects his machine. It has spent the night in a field protected under a cover. Now it's being made ready for take-off. It might look like an insect, but this single-seater craft is capable of lifting up to 2.7 tonnes. "Not an easy thing to fly," says Stefan. A few last checks and then the helicopter climbs into the air, heading for the ravine.
Roughly 30 people are heading up to the ravine today. Franz and his team of professional tree climbers are in the eastern part of the site. Together with his colleague Gabo, he will today be felling a few trees while leaving the stem still standing, a process known as heli-logging or standing stem harvesting. The laborious work is all for an important reason: if dead trees fall into the ravine, they can trap water and cause a mudslide. Divided into two teams, the men make their way onto the slopes.
Once you're twenty metres up in the air, the normal rules no longer apply.
Our team works with professional tools – and so can you. From forests and parks to houses and gardens, we have the perfect chainsaw for every application.
From your back garden to the heart of the forest, personal protective equipment from STIHL keeps you safe and sound.
From secateurs to cleaving hammers – tools made to STIHL quality make every task easier.
It's not only the trees felled in the standing stem harvest that the team are taking away. In the days leading up to their visit an orderly felling operation was conducted over the entire area. Now the trunks in the valley are being brought to the designated assembly point, where they will be stacked up for removal. The helicopter is making roughly 160 round trips today, requiring a new tank of fuel every single hour.
The refuelling team and the full tanks of kerosene are on standby throughout the entire day. After all, the helicopter needs a new tank of fuel on an hourly basis. For seven hours straight it will be relentlessly hard at work, just like the guys up in the ravine.
The weather has improved and the guys have switched to the other side of the ravine. Gabo, the assistant responsible for guiding the helicopter, at-taches the catch dropped from the helicopter to the trunk. An instant later and 1.3 tonnes of tree trunk is flying through the air and down into the valley.
We have captured some of the best pictures from the ravine as a wallpaper for you to download onto your desktop or mobile phone.
We have captured some of the best pictures from the ravine as a wallpaper for you to download onto your desktop or mobile phone.
We have captured some of the best pictures from the ravine as a wallpaper for you to download onto your desktop or mobile phone.
