Re: Narrow Gage Pickup Truck

Hi Mike,

That incident occurred after these photos were taken. I was up the Lobo Lodge road several miles. Even back then, most of the good standing dead trees near the road were picked clean, so I was having a little trouble getting a load. It was late in the day and I had resorted to cutting some dead aspen. I drove the truck down off the road to park conveniently near the target tree, which was leaning heavily away from where the truck was parked. As I cut the trunk, the tree fell against some adjacent trees and hung up, and I couldn't free it by shoving on it, so I did something brilliant, which I knew as I was doing it, I shouldn't have done, which was to cut the trunk again. The tree was only about 7" diameter, so I figured I could handle it OK. When I finished the cut, the trunk hit the ground, and the now-shortened tree was still leaning, but not as steeply as before, and the the top was still hung up. So, I cut the trunk a third time, and again the trunk hit the ground. Now the further-shortened tree was nearly vertical and was bouncing on the limbs upon which it was hung up. As I watched, I could see that it was going to fall, eiher safely the way I had planned or opposite to the way it was originally leaning and down on the truck. Naturally, it came down right across the back of the truck, with the very top of the tree smacking the back corner of the cab roof, leaving a nice dent, which remained as a testament to ignorance until John had the truck painted some years later.