Roadside Rust: Heel-Boom Log Loader

Here’s some really cool roadside rust and this wheeled monster is an old log loader found in the remote mountain community of Beaton British Columbia. It’s a small settlement, so far off the map and hidden away that it might as well be on the moon. Not that it’s a bad thing.

This machine sits off to the side as you enter the tiny community and it’s such an interesting rig, to us outsiders anyway, that one can’t help be curious. We sure were, but who knows if our readers will be as enthusiastic (don’t email!). A big old hunk of metal like this, to us, is a drug, so we could babble on about them endlessly and sometimes do. But not everyone agrees.

Roadside Rust: Heel-Boom Log Loader: now a makeshift swingset. Wandering remote backroads with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)

In the industry this is known as a heel-boom (or snorkel) log loader, popular in the old days, but in more recent times generally usurped by excavator-type machines with hydraulic grapple ends. In the case of this one, it’s got the body and machinery off a Koehring Crane, modified with a specialized Ross boom and mounted on a wheeled chassis.

The design and features of this one suggests it may have been a late model example (1970s?) but we could not find any in old literature that matched it exactly. These were generally pieced together using parts from several manufacturers, by a number of firms specializing in forestry equipment.

For rougher terrain, these might be tracked but for models that kept to the road, rubber was more practical. There’s four axles, two driven and two for steering and we suspect these didn’t move fast.

This one must have been kept busy in the local area and given the almost rain-forest like conditions in the hills around, things were and are very productive. The forest is thick and grows well in the cool, moist conditions.

Who knows when this one was retired and parked, unless a local chimes in. Its second life is that of a makeshift…swingset? Wooohooo! Welcome to the logger’s playground.

Machines of this type were used to load trucks, stockpile logs in the yard or with snorkel extension, usually a long wood pole fitted into that round attachment above the boom, function as a yarder. That is it could drag trees from far away to the loading zone and in this capacity function as dual-purpose machine.

The operator and radiator are both well protected. The chassis has retractable outriggers and these are extended when the machine’s working.

In practice, the grapple would hook on to a log nearer the end, pull it tight against the boom, which would force it horizontal and then lower onto the trailer or pile. The boom riser at the end acted as a pocket for the grapple so it tucked away when at full lift.

And now you know.

Look these machines up on YouTube to see them in operation and when we saw the old footage, it appears to us that it took a fair bit of skill to operate one safely and efficiently.

Beaton is not really a town in any sense, anymore, but a scattered group of homes. At its peak, during the mining boom of the late 1890s and early 1900s period, the population stood at perhaps seventy or eighty. It functioned as supply and transportation hub but is now a quiet backwater.

The location here is along Beaton Arm on Upper Arrow Lake in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia. There ain’t no Starbucks here.

Thanks Dale for making this trip possible and an absolute blast.

Know more: (new tabs): Snorkel Log Loader.

Till next time, keep exploring and having fun.

They’re saying…

”Thank you so much for your fantastic articles and photos. Alberta and BC are dear to my heart. I could spend 24/7 here with you!…” Joanne Winchester Honer.

Heavy metal…
On the Job: ’73 Kenworth W925.
Monsters of Metal: Diplomat Mine.
Autocar Coal Hauler.

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Date of adventure: May, 2022.
Location: On the Beaton Path, BC.

Roadside Rust: This old Heel-Boom Log Loader.

It’s second life is that of a…swingset?

It’s been parked by the road a long time.