Jerry Beranek
High climber and timber faller.
Jerry Beranek is a tall, straight-talk-
ing American who, if he wore a
Stetson, would be a dead ringer for
an outlaw in a John Wayne movie.
Instead he wears a baseball cap and
is the author of The Fundamentals
of General Tree Work, first published
in 1996. His book has sold 13,000
copies and is a reference tool for
many a trainee arborist. During the
last two decades, Jerry has climbed
and felled some of the largest
trees on earth. These are the ‘old
growth’ coastal redwood forests
and ‘second growth’ pine forests of
Northern California. I visited him in
his hometown of Fort Bragg, where
he spoke about his life working ‘in
the woods’.
Jerry was born in San Francisco,
into a family where his grandfa-
ther worked as a heavy equipment
mechanic, his father in a sawmill
and two uncles as log-truck drivers.
Yet he says that he came to forestry
more by accident than design. “I
came back to California in 1969,
after two tours of duty with the
Engineer Corps in Vietnam. I was
waiting for a place on an appren-
ticeship programme as a machinist.
In the meantime, a friend got me
A ten-foot diameter old growth redwood. Jerry sits on the staging having
brought this outlaw to rest, his Stihl chainsaws resting on the trunk. Felled for
Don Sundstrom Logging In Groshon Gulch, Gualala Redwoods, Mendocino
County, June 1991.
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work with Sohner Tree Services in
Santa Rosa, trimming trees around
power lines. I figured it would be a
temporary thing.”
Working on line clearance at Joy
Ridge in Sonoma County in 1971,
Jerry spotted what he thought must
be an ‘outlaw’ old-growth redwood
left by old time loggers. This is
a high quality tree left standing
because there is no feasible way
of felling it without breaking it. He
decided there and then that he
would climb it for fun. Along with
two friends, spurs and flipline, it was
not easy, but they managed it. Thus
began Jerry’s passion for recrea-
tional climbing and big trees.
When Jerry moved to Fort Bragg
in 1975, he continued to work with
Davy Tree Services (once Sohner),
moonlighting during weekends. “In
the early 1970s, everyone assumed
that there were no old-growth red-
woods left to log. In 1976 I was
asked by a ‘gypo’ (private logging
company) to rig old growth ‘pull
trees’ [trees which are felled using
a rope, attached by a climber, the
other end being pulled by a skid-
der] growing alongside 60,000 volt
transmission lines in the Jackson
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Jerry Beranek coming out of a big tree after having set the rigging in it for
Vogal Logging at Mule Creek, Mendocino County, February 1984.
State Demonstration Forest, 50,000
acres owned by the California
Department of Forestry. The state
was logging the old growth.”
Jerry left Davy Tree Services in
1988 and went to work ‘in the
woods’. “The first gypo I worked
for was Jerry Philbrick Logging. I
was carrying a chainsaw and falling
mostly second growth timber. ‘Pull
trees’ were generally the last thing
to be felled in old growth logging
plans. We worked all around them,
then hired in climbers to go up and
set the rigging, while the Cats built
the layouts. Fallers would tighten
the lines with heavy equipment to
hold the tree. Once we’d put the
cuts in, we’d back-off and fall the
tree into a layout.”
The tallest tree (300 feet high
and 11 feet in diameter) that he
has ever felled was an ‘outlaw’
redwood growing on a cliff over a
creek in Rockport and steep slopes
on three sides. Many fallers had
rejected the challenge, fearful of
the breakage that would result from
such an uncompromising landing
area. Relishing the opportunity,
Jerry decided that the best way to
keep the heartwood intact was to
top the tree out. With the help of
two colleagues, he set the staging
at 150 feet.
Some time later (with his leg in
plaster) with an audience of twenty
onlookers, he made kerfs using a
Stihl 044 with 36 inch bar and the
undercuts with a Stihl 090 carrying
an 84 inch bar. Standing on the
staging, the trunk swaying in winds
of up to 100 mph, he remembers
the sound of the top splitting off
– an ear splitting screech that filled
the gorge. Within 30 seconds, the
150 foot top had landed, rolled
and settled unbroken, way down
the hillside. As news of the triumph
spread, the 150 foot stub did not
fare as well and broke up on land-
ing.
Working for many logging outfits
during his fourteen years in the
woods, his favourite fell, in 1991,
was a ‘bastard’ second-growth red-
wood for Don Sundstrom Logging.
This expression generally refers to a
second growth tree growing very
fast after the old growth surround-
ing it has been felled. “It was the
greatest job experience I ever had.
The tree netted me 15,000 board
feet. It was also my worst job,
because it did not pay. I was only
making $200 per day, working from
sun-up to sun-down to get it. It is
better to be paid per 1,000 board
feet. At least you can make a fair
wage. Day wage jobs are okay, but
you lose the incentive to work hard.
After travelling 50 miles one way to
a job site, the cost of fuel, carrying
your own insurance and paying for
saws, it is all expenses. Expenses can
cost you $100 per day easily. And
then you have taxes…”
Jerry thinks he felled an average
Forest Machine Journal 11/06
of 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 board
feet between April and November
each year, as well as climbing and
rigging pull-trees. He says, “There
are no certificates needed to run
a chainsaw in California. When I
was younger I never wore earplugs,
safety glasses, hard hat or gloves.
When you are young you are invul-
nerable and nothing can hurt you
– if you get dust in your eye you
just dig it out. Today, I use modern
techniques; shoot a line up into
trees, set and climb the ropes. There
are no spikes in the trees now, and it
is so much easier.”
Environmental awareness (start-
ed by the Sierra Club at the turn of
the century) resulted in the creation
of the National Park System. This
demonstrated to the public that
pressure groups could be success-
ful. This, combined with a grow-
ing public interest in recreation,
protecting the ‘wilderness’, wildlife
and water quality, meant that what
remained of the old growth for-
ests would became an explosive
battleground between loggers and
conservationists.
Over the years Jerry has wit-
nessed his fair share of protests
against old growth logging. He was
asked to help remove protesters
staging ‘sit-ins’ in Eureka in 2003
and 2004. This year, local activists
successfully shut down the Jackson
State Demonstration Forest, claim-
ing that there was no sustainable
management plan. “Redwoods are
not as fragile as activists lead people
to believe. They are hearty resilient
trees. Activists always want to stop
something. They want to turn the
Northwest into a big park that
people can drive through and look
at, not actually get out and experi-
ence.”
Jerry recalls his most heated
exchange in 1989. “Redwood
Summer; 3,000 activists descend-
ed on Fort Bragg, Crescent City
Forest Machine Journal 11/06
and Eureka. They shut down the
highway in town and clashed with
locals. Riot police had to keep the
two factions apart. They were bla-
tantly telling the community they
were going to shut us down. It was
a real slap in the face for locals, but
just a big party for the activists.”
Fort Bragg’s last sawmill, the
Georgia Pacific (previously the
Union Lumber Company) closed
two years ago with the loss of 600
jobs. What was once a blue-collar
town has now become a service
industry town, catering to the ‘reti-
rees’ who move up from the city.
While this is good for the realtors,
it has ruined the lives of many local
families who can no longer afford to
live in the area.
In 2001, Jerry began working
almost exclusively for one private
contractor. He now fells trees on
small exemption logging plans
(three acres or less and a year to
carry out the work), or single unit
harvest plans, (specific sites, around
10 acres, to be completed in three
years) on ranches, as well as general
tree surgery around private homes.
It is more technical, but he is glad to
have the work.
Jerry still teaches climbing. He
talks about his work in the forests
to ‘out of state’ audiences. He says
that his first book took twenty years
to write because he had to do the
research first. His second book has
The Rockport ‘outlaw’: Jerry and Keith Anker are prying out the undercut,
taken longer – he has had a pho-
standing on the 150 foot high staging. Jerry’s right leg is in a cast and the 84
tographic archive to create. In the
inch Stihl 090 sits on the staging. (Philbrick Logging, Rockport, Mendocino
introduction to High Climbers and
County, February 1985.)
Timber Fallers (From old growth log-
ging to Second Growth Management), friend advised him to put the pic- they are fighting to save this par-
he writes, “It was my ability to climb tures in order, write the ‘stories’ ticular environment are the very
big trees that got me in the woods a and have it ready to print in 2005. people who are taking away the
lot, but what got me into the woods The book is now in its second self- livelihood of – and alienating – the
the most was my camera.” published print-run. It is a moving people who perhaps know it best.
In 2004, after thirty years of account of work by men who loved If readers would like to order
photographing his rope-and-chain- what they did and respected where copies of Jerry’s books, please go to
saw comrades and some very large they worked. One wrong move www.atreestory.com
trees, a friend asked to see his could cost them their lives. Carolyne Locher
archive. Within weeks, the same It is ironic that those who claim
(Left) Jerry
Beranek on his
‘stoop’ out-
side his home
in Fort Bragg,
Mendocino
County, Northern
California.
(September
2006.)
(Right) Bitten off
more than it can
chew. A Cat 966
loader attempts
to lift a hefty
butt.
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