Above the A82 near Loch Ness, 100-year-old conifers are at increasing risk of windblow and are of such a size – 50 m tall and weighing 10–12 tonnes – that they could cause significant damage to infrastructure were they to be blown over in a storm. For this reason, Forest and Land Scotland launched a project to remove them, expected to take 25 years to complete. Now more than 10 years in, Forestry Journal caught up with contractor Calum Duffy for an update.
IN April of this year, Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) announced the next phase of the long-term steep-ground felling work along the length of the A82 was set to begin and continue until the end of June. It indicated this work would see large trees being removed from slopes above the main road from Glasgow to Inverness. The stretch being worked on in this phase is between Drumnadrochit and Invermoriston.
The trees being removed are mostly Douglas fir that were planted on this hillside around 100 years ago. They are now too large and heavy for the landscape, presenting a risk to the road and loch below, hence the need for their removal. Their replacements will be natural native species, which FLS believes will be more sustainable and help to build ‘resilience’ into the hillside.
Ian Allsop, FLS planning manager, was clear in saying that it was “without question the most challenging phase of the work that we have undertaken.” He went on: “Harvesting is generally a hazardous business. Factor in bad weather and it becomes trickier. But add to that some incredibly steep ground and you are faced with a job that needs to be done slowly, with exceptional attention to detail and by people who are absolutely at the top of their game.” FLS specialist contractor for this work and other past sites on the A82 project is Duffy Skylining.
Work on the A82 started in 2012 and Forestry Journal has been following it from the very beginning. In 2012, I interviewed Calum Duffy, catching up with him again in 2021.
Having been involved in skylining with his father’s business when he was 17 and researched skylining techniques in Europe, Calum saw the opportunity to position his company in this niche sector.
As a result, his company has been part of the A82 project since its inception, creating a number of firsts. It carried out the first A82 project skyline job that involved traffic management at Glen Righ in 2014, then worked on a limited space technical site at Loch Lochy in 2015. Two years later, at Primrose Bay, it carried out the first felling of large Douglas firs on steep ground.
In 2018 Calum moved to having two skylining teams, with one under his management specifically focused on the A82. His son Tommy also joined the business that year. Since our interview in 2021 was focused on the impact of COVID on the business, when catching up with him again I was eager to hear more detail about how things had progressed in recent years.
Calum said that in June 2020, he had started work on the A82 project at Wades Bridge, in the Ratagan forest, following a delay of two months due to Covid. Initially this was on a three-day week, but then after about a month it was back to a full five-day week.
“Once the A82 project contract started up I felt the company could begin building once again,” he said. “I had another crew working not far away for Tilhill Forestry but I was not happy with the skyline unit I had there, as it was too small. The crew were trying their best, but were restricted by the machine size and capacity. Another company was working close by and I managed to buy out the skyline element and secure my old Volvo 360blc skyline back.
“This gave the crew a fighting chance of making their targets. The Wades Bridge coup was a challenge for the machines, with some very large Douglas fir and a steep ravine causing various operational challenges. The machines dealt with it fairly easily and it was a good development ground for the crew away from the pressures of the A82 project works.”
Wades Bridge was completed in December of 2020. The next job was at Callert, opposite Ballachulish – another challenging job by all accounts, with long extraction distances and multiple ravines to cope with. In addition, the longest rack was 750 metres from base unit to spar tree and each carriage transition took 12 minutes, so each turn had to be a minimum of two tonnes to maximise income.
Calum said: “We completed this job in August 2021, then moved just across the loch to the St John’s Church area in Glenahulish. This was the first phase of a job that had been on FLS’s radar for a while and we had worked the other side of the glen years before. We decided to work the job from the same side as previously. This meant the extraction routes and landing areas were already there, but the trees would be fully suspended over a 150-ft gorge and access in was limited. We built a bridge from two 12 m logs and this saved a lot of wet feet.”
By October 2021, Duffy Skylining was back working on the A82 project, at a site at Grotaig, called Bark Sheds.
“This was the coup that every time a site visit was held by FLS they took people there to show the severity of the works. It had never been started for various reasons but I knew once we got going in there, we had to keep going. FLS staff used a very methodical approach to starting this coup, with several pre-start visits to satisfy everyone the plans were solid and raise any issues well in advance.
“This approach paid off as when we moved the machinery in we felt we were already familiar with what was ahead. Felling the first tree on this site was a real moment for me as I genuinely thought it was not going to happen. But, here I was, saw in hand, traffic lights on red and hammering wedges in massive 95-year-old Douglas firs thinking ,‘wow, it doesn’t get any better than this’. Felling and extracting these trees took a massive amount of planning.
“The specs they were to be cut to ranged from three to 14 metres, some logs in excess of seven cubic metres. We used every felling aid available in terms of tree jacks, wedges and predominantly used the skyline as a winch assist. If we had any doubt over a tree’s lean or health we climbed and put a higher pull on it, securing the bottom with Tirfor winches. The rigging was heavy, the pressures of seeing traffic passing below you as you opened the road was constant, but eventually it became par for the course.”
While Calum was focused on leading the A82 project team, he was full of praise for his second team led by foreman Donald Halbert, who organised work with “military precision”, in Calum’s words.
“Douglas fir can be a slippy customer to deal with, especially on any kind of slope,” he said. “Here we had severe slopes and massive trees. They all wanted to head towards the A82; we wanted them to head across the hill. Felling them freehand and letting them rip just was not an option. They broke and turned on the hill nearly every time. So once again, we were using winch assist, Tirfors, utilising natural valleys in the hill to save them out, looking to save as much timber as possible, avoiding breaking or smashing them, and just doing stuff that is not even a consideration on a conventional site. This type of work is very demanding, not just on your physicality but your mentality as well. You’re constantly thinking how best to get the tree down and out and do it all safely.”
The project has also seen Calum seek out the best equipment to perform on steep ground.
“The machines are built to deliver very technical work and strengthened to take the rigours of steep-ground extraction. We have to be at the top of the game to safely deliver this contract. Machinery has to be the best available and the rigging has to be extremely heavy duty. The competency of the workforce has to be very high but there is still room for development, which FLS encourages and supports within the contract.
“I researched the various cable crane systems available to see which one was best suited to the A82 operations. I went to Norway and saw the Owren skyline system working, as well as to Austria to see the Konrad, which is a lorry-mounted skyline system, and Koller and Syncrofalke, which are other lorry-mounted cable cranes, but I felt that none of them matched the flexibility of the excavator-based machines. An excavator can build its own landing areas, be situated off the forest road and have significantly more breakout force.”
Moving into 2022, Duffy Skylining, like many others involved in the forestry and arboricultural sectors, found itself dealing with the after-effects of Storm Arwen. The A82 project site was not overly affected, but the site at Loch Lochy was and they had a few months of work dealing with windblow, which was also affecting the Great Glen Way, for FLS. Work continued on the A82 site at Bark Sheds. Skills and techniques were refined and Calum described a real feeling of accomplishment at what they achieved.
As summer arrived, attention turned to the St John’ site at Ballachulish.
“When we left the A82 job to go to St John’s, the geotechnical teams came in behind us,” said Calum. “They erected the next stage of temporary catch fencing, and this is attached to the standing edge trees between 3–4 metres high and in 60-metre panels. All trees that had the fence attached had to be topped, so once we had extracted the trees the fence could be reinstated to provide cover for any debris that could fall off the slopes.”
Phase 2 of St John’s was to prove to be very tricky as, with the team having to avoid the native pine trees, the picking of extraction lines had to be done very carefully with a fair bit of felling carried out into the rack line. For Calum and his team, this was time-consuming work and a lot of planning was required to get it right. Once more, the team stayed on-site in the camp area for the summer months, returning back to the A82 works in late October 2022.
However, for Calum, an important decision had to be made. He was carrying a shoulder injury from a fall and this had been getting progressively worse. He knew he could not climb and was struggling with the chainsaw, so he decided to train up one of his younger operators, Blair Wallace, who quickly picked up the fundamentals.
Calum said: “One thing I have always tried to do with my company is to encourage younger people to give things a go. I have had a lot over the years and some have made careers from it while others have not. In January 2022, I took on a 16-year-old lad, Logan Wallace, who was tiny, but from the outset had the heart of a lion – polite, punctual and a good little grafter. I really had my doubts about whether he could make it, but I was wrong.
“Two years later he is leading the charge on the hill and has filled out into a great choker man. We have a solid path to follow for new starts. Eventually they will be fully qualified in every piece of machinery, if they choose. It gives me great satisfaction to see young boys become men under my watch.”
The Loch Lochy job was completed in November and Calum’s second crew then started a huge job at South Laggan. This was very technical, with many restrictions. It started with an uphill extraction of approximately 10,000 tonnes and then moved to a downhill one of a similar amount – roughly two years of challenging working in one area.
2023 began with a shoulder operation for Calum and a period of rehabilitation putting him out of commission, just as Duffy Skylining was about to start work on a very steep and technical site on the A82 project at Bark Sheds, Grotaig. He reckons it was without doubt one of the worst areas he had seen in terms of terrain, tree size and external pressures. While it was, by his own admission, a nervous time, he had confidence in his team, had planned things beforehand with them, and was always on hand to discuss ideas, if needed. They did not let him down and the work was completed.
By April 2023, Calum was turning down jobs due to not having enough resource, so he began to assess the viability of running a third skylining team. His gut told him there was demand and the feedback he got was positive. The decision was made to staff it with a core from the current teams, with Calum leading it.
“A new skyline was the rock to build around,” he said. “I spoke to Baden Powell in Wales, and he had one that was definitely of interest, so we batted some plans about and I bought it. I wanted some modifications done, which his engineer, Toby Hyde, was happy to do. There was a three-month lead time so I was able to look for a harvester, forwarder and all the associated kit to let us get going. You only realise how much you need to buy once you try to duplicate it. It was unbelievable how much was required.
“Equipment and machinery is the easy part – it’s mostly on the shelf. However, manpower and knowledge is a whole different thing. I had to make several enquires and approach people I thought could form the team. I had a couple of guys keen to get involved, but I still needed a bit more experience at the landing area. We had a job for the Woodland Trust to start in August so it all had to be in place by then.”
Some staff changes took place as the A82 project work stopped for the summer and Phase 3 at St John’s got underway. Calum’s son Tommy was moved to the A82 crew to allow him to consolidate chainsaw work and to move him towards being the next chainsaw operator. By the August deadline, the equipment and resources were in place, felling had been done and dragging started.
Duffy Skylining now had three active large skyline teams, which was a proud moment for Calum.
The Woodland Trust site was finished with the third crew in late September and then Duffy Skylining won a spot sale on FLS land through Tilhill Forestry. This was a big job which would see the company through to July 2024.
Having got the third team in place, the focus returned to the St John’s site. The idea was to get it completed without a fourth phase.
“With this in mind I sent in four chainsaw operators to really get ahead of the felling element,” Calum said. “There was a lot of windblow in this section. It took serious planning and competent cutters. While the cutting was happening, the chokermen got all the spar rigging on the hill so it was ready to go. On a personal note I was pleased as this was the first real chainsaw work I had done since my shoulder operation, and I was back climbing as well.
“Once the felling was well on its way and the first rack set up, I came away from this site, leaving the day-to-day running to Tommy and a few more experienced men. This was a great opportunity for them to take on the responsibility of daily decisions and running of the site. It was fairly obvious early on that this site was not going to get completed in October to allow a return to the A82, but it actually worked out okay as the geotechnical teams had found several rock crags that needed extra work in their site inspections, so geotechnical teams took over works on the A82 site.”
Work on the St John’s site was completed by January 2024, resuming on the latest part of the A82 project in April.
“I got a call in mid April saying the FLS had a window available on the A82 works and to get there as soon as possible,” said Calum. “So that is what we did and that is where we are today. Felling and extracting massive Douglas firs on the most challenging terrain in the whole UK – and living the dream!”
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