Bob’s Peak job years in the planning

THE CONIFERS THAT COVER THE SLOPES OF BOB’S PEAK, behind Queenstown, have been under careful consideration by the Queenstown Lakes District Council for many years. While they provide a nice green backdrop to the township and also stabilise the thin soil on the rocky slopes, they are also encroaching on the famous Skyline cableway.

In 2005, the council decided to take action.

Roughly 650 hectares was divided up into compartments by then consultant Branislav Zoric and I was asked to assess best methods for removal of adjacent Douglas-fir trees that were over-reaching the cable lines.

Logging contractor, Grant Devery and I, marked targeted trees all the way down to the Skyline office, some with estimated heights up to 50 metres and DBH variations from 70-to-110cm.

It wasn’t an easy task, as you can see by the steepness of the slope in the accompanying photo and at times, one of us had to be roped to get at tree bases.

We spray marked trees for removal and noted that some were estimated to be 15 metres above the cables.

Logistics for felling was going to be costly, requiring bulldozer winches, block and tackle tie ups, as tree butts could end up in the ticket office if they were not secured.

In the event, just a few trees were removed and the rest grew on for another 13 years.

Now a few metres taller, more trees need to be taken out and it’s little wonder that Andrew Haulage is taking a strict safety first approach.

Some of the large trees next to the skyline cable measure nearly 70 metres in height, with a LED of 1.3 plus metres, so it is going to require lots of careful planning and effort to tackle them.

I’m glad to be just sitting on the sidelines and recording proceedings as an interested observer for this job.

NZL