Letting the chips fall where they may

The Daily Inter Lake

Soft wood and hard steel came together on Saturday during the annual Stumpjumper Days logging competition at Flathead Valley Community College.

The solid "thwock" of wood being chopped reverberated across the campus, together with the grunting and heaving of contestants and the cheers of a sparse-but-supportive audience.

Ann Beall, a part-time instructor and coach of FVCC's Logger sports team, said 75 students from six colleges and universities were involved in the competition.

Stumpjumper Days tested their logging skills in a variety of events, including pole climbing, ax throwing, hard or speed chopping, and single- or double-buck sawing.

Hard chopping, for example, measures how many ax blows it takes cut through a 10-inch larch log when the log is anchored in a horizontal or vertical position. The top finishers in the men's horizontal log competition on Saturday took about 20 blows; the women took a few more.

Beall said it takes at least a month of practice for someone to learn the proper technique for some of the events.

"You have to understand why the chips come out the way they do, why we want you to chop in a particular rotation," she said. "With a [crosscut saw], you can't just pull on it any way you want. Technique has a lot to do with it. There's a lot of thinking involved."

Strength and endurance come into play as well, given that there were 12 different events in the competition and only eight people on a team.

"Each school can send as many teams as they want," Beall said. "Missoula has been the team to beat this year. They've won most of the meets so far."

She noted that several members of the University of Montana team previously attended FVCC and learned their skills here.

Other schools competing on Saturday included the University of Idaho, Washington State University, the University of Washington and Humboldt State University.