Original subtitles

[man] Oh!

[narrator] Last week, after betting big on a second operation...

[man] The final frontier of logging.

This is the point of no return.

[narrator] ...logger Jared Douglas got more than he bargained for.

-[woman] Oh, God! A stain, like a blood stain. -[man 1] Gross.

[man 2] We got a ton of work to do.

This place has been neglected for years.

Big time stressed out.

I definitely... bit off more than I can chew.

[narrator] And while his hand fallers raced to keep timber coming in...

[man] Nice.

[narrator] ...an uninvited guest

shut Float Camp down completely.

[Jared speaking]

If we gotta wait four weeks, that'll kill this place.

[narrator] While his new claim in Grizzly River

suffered setbacks from the start.

[man 1] Every minute you lose today, you don't get back at the end of the year.

[man 2] Get out of there!

[man 1] We cannot fail or could take down the company.

[narrator] ...with the next log barge less than a week out,

-Jared has a shot at $200,000 in profit. -[man] Oh, [bleep]!

[narrator] But only if he can get Float Camp back on track...

[Jared] If this doesn't work...

This is gonna [bleep] send him over the top.

[narrator] ...and Grizzly River up and running...

[man 1] We got smoke coming out of the exhaust now.

[man 2] Come on, you [bleep]!

[narrator] ...before the money runs out.

Whoa, stay up high!

[Jared] I've never been this frustrated in my entire [bleep] life.

This might be the end of me.

[narrator] In the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest,

Jared's high-tailing it back to Float Camp

to deal with a setback no one saw coming.

We got word from Ross that there's a Canadian goose

that's laid an egg in our skidway.

And we have an obligation to the wildlife.

We really need to make sure we follow the regulations.

It's definitely affecting all sorts of things right now, financially.

[narrator] In these parts,

Canadian geese are a fiercely protected species.

And until this one moves out on its own accord,

Jared's only source of income is shut down.

[Jared] We need that skidway to get logs in the water.

If we don't get that wood in the water, we don't get paid.

We have a log barge coming in three days.

This is a disaster.

[narrator] And the timing couldn't be worse.

After buying out his partner and sinking another $600,000

into opening Grizzly River,

Jared is $1.7 million in the hole.

He's got one season to pay off the debt

and save the business he spent 20 years building.

Just a man trying to make a dollar in this forest

that just keeps giving it to me.

And we're down.

[Ross] What do we do?

[Jared grunts] We better get something [bleep] done here today.

Besides crying over spilled milk.

Float Camp was going to pay the bills.

It was going to keep money coming in

and give me that money to invest in Grizzly.

[narrator] Jared was counting on this operation

to bring another $200,000 in profits.

But with no way to splash wood

or call off the already-inbound log barge,

his hands are tied.

This is where the goose is doing us in.

[Jared] Well, what did the biologists say for the goose?

Like, what have we got?

[Ross] Once they hatch, I guess.

Once they hatch, we can shove them along?

Or do they got to stay in their nest?

Until they take off by themselves, I guess.

This is not what I need right now.

I'm to my eyeballs in debt,

and I need to make sure both operations

are producing logs and money.

And we need to get this problem solved right now.

Look at it. It's got oceanfront view.

[Ross] Accommodations.

[Jared] You understand the wages that are being lost here and everything?

[bleep] me.

[narrator] A hundred miles to the north, at Grizzly River...

[Dave] What's the ceiling at?

-[man] About 750 to 800. -750?

[narrator] Woods foreman Dave Lornie is dealing with a different kind of foul.

Foul weather.

[Dave] Finally got the camp up and running now.

The weather's kind of slowing us down here.

Jared is extremely anxious to get us into production.

[Jared] Grizzly River poses the most challenges

I've ever seen in a logging operation

just from its sheer location

and dealing with the river.

Last guy that operated in Grizzly River, the woods got him.

He went broke.

This is a full-on risk and everybody thinks I'm bat [bleep] crazy.

[narrator] After three days of rain,

skies are just starting to clear.

Which means Dave can finally get this logging operation underway.

[Dave] How was the flight?

[man] Surely ain't bad.

Home sweet home.

[Dave] Pick a room.

Just pick whatever you want that there's nobody in.

[Rob] Perfect.

-[Dave] Let's check out the cook house. -[Rob] Okay.

[Dave] Maya's an unreal cook.

Breakfast right now is 5:45 a.m. to 6:45 a.m.

-Dinner's 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. -[Rob] Looks good.

[Jim] Yeah.

[Dave] I got the boys orientated into the camp

and they seem happy.

Jared's going to be very relieved

we're ready to get into production with the falling.

-Ready? -[Rob] Yeah.

[Jim] Okay.

[Dave] Pretty close to camp.

Pretty nice.

[Rob] We can make beauties.

-[Dave] Let's try and hack out this line here, guys. -[Jim] Oh, yeah.

[Dave] Jared's pretty stressed out, so it's good timing here

that we got this spot to come into.

Yeah, just identify any overhead hazards.

[Rob] That's an interesting little scenario.

Oh, there's hang-up.

That's going to be a fun one.

[Dave] We'll walk back into here. This is where they are.

Oh, yeah, here we go.

[Rob] That thing's tall.

Lots of cat and bear scratching.

Bears are starting to wake up now.

Jackpot.

[Dave] Yeah.

Nice and sound.

Jeez, rock solid.

[Dave] These fallers are a different breed.

They're ready to rock and roll.

They have a dangerous job.

They're the best of the best in the woods.

And now we can start putting some serious production in the water.

[Rob] Okay, where do you want to start, Jim?

-[Jim] Paper, rock, scissors? -[all laughing]

That's a big [bleeping].

[narrator] At Float Camp...

[Jared] So, have we got a second skidway down here?

[Ross] Yeah, but it definitely needs some love.

[narrator] ...Jared and foreman Ross need to come up with a way

to splash logs without spooking the goose.

And they may have just found one.

-[Jared] This is a skidway? -[Ross] Yep.

Been there for a little while. It's a little rotten.

[Jared] They don't have time for this [bleep].

[narrator] They might not look like much, but skid ramps like these

are the linchpins of any logging operation.

The last in a long and costly process that moves wood to market.

And the only means of getting log bundles

too heavy to lift by machine into the water.

[Jared] The problem with this ramp is,

as you can see, the skidway is bent.

When it gets to low tide, it comes high and dry at the end

and the bundles are gonna get hung up there.

Gonna have to carve this out, I guess,

-and put a boomstick in here. -Yeah.

[Jared] It's the only thing we can really do at this point.

[Ross] You got the goose over there just laughing at us.

[Jared] I've never been this frustrated in my entire [bleep] life.

This might be the end of me.

[narrator] To get this decommissioned ramp up and running,

Jared and Ross will have to smooth out the kink in one of its skids.

To do it, they'll repurpose a 60-foot boomstick

typically used to fence in log bundles

and lash it to the skid like a splint.

[Jared] You're gonna have to get a boomstick unhooked out of there

with the crew boat and push it to me somewhere

-where I can get close to shore with the loader. -[Ross] Yeah.

[Jared] We're not gonna make anything happen sitting here and talking it to death,

so let's get some action happening.

All I want to do is be able to hold my head high

in this community, create jobs.

I really just don't know what I would do with myself if I don't make it.

Yeah, we'll give her a go.

Don't bang the props off on our precious boat.

-You know how badly we need it. -[Ross] I'll try to, yeah.

[narrator] While Jarrod falls deeper into debt at Float Camp,

back at Grizzly River...

Well, we got about an eight-foot cedar tree here.

[narrator] ...handfallers Jim and Rob are closing in

on some desperately-needed money trees.

But the dense forest around Grizzly,

is a tangled canopy of limb-tied branches,

widowmakers and other overhead hazards

that make getting them to the ground

a potentially deadly puzzle.

[Rob] I'm gonna say, I don't know, 140 feet tall.

There'll be some high-grade logs coming over it.

Dense stands of timber have their inherent problems.

There'll be rotten tops, there'll be branches just hanging there.

Some schoolmarms hanging off the top of it.

Schoolmarm is when the top dies,

the leading limbs turn into the new tops

and they grow up off the sides of the trees

and then they redistribute the weight of the tree.

It is leaning kind of right along the sideline.

I'm hoping to put it out

right through here is a nice spot for it.

So I'll just bring my undercut right to about here...

and put it right out there.

It's leaning back a bit.

What do you think? Can we jack it?

[Jim] I think we could jack this.

We'd have to probably jack right in this area somewhere to get it to go out there.

Okay.

[narrator] To keep control of the tree,

Rob will have to counter the weight

of those heavy schoolmarm's pulling it down.

First, he'll make an undercut.

Then, he'll make a back cut

and create a space in the tree for the jack.

With the jack in place,

they'll use it to direct the tree into its landing spot.

[Rob] We should throw a band on it, though, just in case.

So, I'll give you that.

[Jim] There are pocket seams that go up the tree.

So there's a small likelihood that this will hit the ground and it'll split.

So to minimize that, we're gonna have to band it.

[Rob] Ooh.

Good.

Beautiful.

Okay, I'll put the undercut in right there.

[whirring]

[Jim] That looks good now.

[Rob] That should work.

I'll just start the back cut around, notch in for the jack

and then we can put the jack in there, I guess.

Yep.

[Rob] My job is to take it very seriously.

It's dangerous for me, but if you don't take it seriously,

it can be dangerous for your partner as well.

Working as a team, you can keep track of each other.

When I'm cutting, Jim can watch for overhead hazards

or even those schoolmarm's that have split away from the tree

and they're just hanging there, waiting to fall out.

Just checking.

Probably not a bad idea.

Jimmy and I first started falling together.

He was still fairly green,

but he had drive, he had ambition.

So, yeah, I trust Jim.

You have to be able to trust your partner with your life.

There's some rot in the butt.

but there's still some holding wind in there.

Hopefully it's sound enough.

'Cause [bleep] can go sideways real quick.

And that thing could break off and go over backwards and flatten that jack.

[Jim] Jack's a two-man operation.

We pretty much have to have someone cutting

and someone lifting at the same time.

With the extra guy there, he can keep pressure on it as I'm cutting.

And then he can tell me if he hears any pops, cracks.

Like, get the hell out of there or the jack's slipping.

[whirring]

[Rob] Keep going.

Perfect.

It feels amazing.

It makes you feel alive.

This would have peeled like a banana if it wasn't banded.

Cedar fell pretty much where I wanted it to.

The band helped save it out.

I can hear Dave is chomping at the bit

to get this wood in the water.

So we've got to do our best to keep it up.

[narrator] With the first log safely on the ground,

foreman Dave is turning his attention to the next big challenge.

Getting all that wood to the water.

[Dave] Here at Grizzly River, we've got a bunch of really cool old machines.

The time has taken back over them.

The forest is growing through them.

There is the most awesome dump truck

that was converted into a logging truck.

It used to haul equipment up and down the main line at Grizzly.

It's been sitting for 15 years,

but with a little bit more elbow grease,

I think we could actually haul logs with that old logging truck.

It's going to save me time and money and Jared will be happy.

[narrator] It would cost Jared more than $100,000

to buy a fat truck and send it up Grizzly River.

But if Dave can get this one back in working order,

it'll save both time and money.

I'm going to pick up Adrian Bailey, my little mechanic helper.

He's a really good buddy of mine.

I haven't seen him in, like, five years,

so I'm really excited to see him.

Adrian!

[Adrian] Davey!

-Look at the rocking hairdo, bud. -[bleep]

-Hey, it's good to see you. -Yeah, you too.

-Too long. -Yeah.

-Welcome to Grizzly River, buddy. -Hell yeah, brother.

[Dave] Adrian, he's quite the little grease monkey. He loves challenges.

He's haywire like me.

That's why I took a real shine to him years ago.

He's looking like Axl Rose these days

and he is memorized and played

and knows every Guns N' Roses song.

I think he's hoping that Axl Rose will pick him out of a crowd

and want him to replace him one day.

[Adrian] Got all the essentials anyhow here.

I sure hope he doesn't go and become a rock star and not a mechanic anymore.

I might go be his bodyguard.

I thought you were only staying a couple of days. You got six flats.

-Well, I don't know. [bleep] -[Dave laughs]

I'm a heavy duty mechanic. And I like heavy metal and rock and roll.

How is rock and roll and logging similar?

It's this [bleep] break it, [bleep it], thrash it, burn it, kill it,

[bleep] eat it. [bleeping]

Money made, money burnt, money lost.

Throw it, [bleep] it. Who cares?

Full throttle, give-her-all-the-way kind of an industry.

And I love it.

I love working with Dave

because he's a wild and crazy logger.

Like, he's super rock and roll.

Every time I get to work with him, I learn how to be rockin'.

It is absolutely never a dull moment when I'm working with Dave.

Absolutely never a dull moment.

[Dave] We're just gonna stop and look at our project here.

-Where's your drink? -[Adrian] Right here.

-Good to see you, young fella. -Cheers, pal.

I [bleep] love it.

-Bring back memories. -Hey, Davey. Oh, yeah.

There's some ancient [bleep] out here.

-[Dave] Oh, yeah, bud. -[Adrian] This is old, man.

I've never seen anything like this.

[Dave] You know how many logs that thing probably hauled off the scariest mountains?

[Adrian] Holy [bleep], man.

Being a bush mechanic working with loggers,

their standards are much different

than gear shop and engine shop back in town.

[Dave] They're pretty cool. Big heavy old cabs.

I think the low bed's actually in better shape than the one we've been using.

[Adrian] [bleep], man.

[Dave] Pose her down and paint her up, man.

[Adrian] When it comes to repair and maintenance of heavy equipment,

you can do the job right or you can do it now.

And generally they want it all done now.

And so you cut some corners, you try to cheat a little bit

to keep production flowing.

How long has it been sitting? Do you know?

Fifteen years.

-Fifteen? -Fifteen years.

I see no cap on the fuel tank.

No, we'll just-- We're gonna bypass that.

We'll get a five-gallon bucket,

we'll make a dripper, change the filters

and get some batteries out of something we're not using.

-We'll just have some fun with it, right? -[Adrian] [bleep] yeah.

The first step is to hook batteries up and see if it'll budge at all.

That low bed's been sitting apparently about 15 years,

but as long as it turns over, I think I can outsmart that thing.

-[Adrian] Let's do this. -Let's do it.

[Adrian] If it doesn't turn over,

then we gotta start from scratch

and start looking into the engine

and see what the issue is there.

We'll see.

[Dave] We got a big V on the front of this truck.

If we get it running, it's gonna be for "victory."

[Ross] Want me to grab a stick?

[Jared] Yeah, I need a boomstick badly,

and we're gonna get this done, and it'll be all day.

[narrator] Back at Float Camp,

and with the protected goose going nowhere soon

Jared and Ross are working to restore

a second skid ramp.

So they can start splashing bundles

before the log barge arrives.

[Jared] Just getting prop up, myself up onto the skidway

and be able to work on the edge there.

[narrator] While Ross rounds up a half-ton boomstick

to serve as one of the skids,

Jared digs a trench to help hold it in place.

[Jared] Just trying to clear a pathway

so we can get a good boomstick down in along this skidway

so that we can start dumping out low tides.

Gotta make sure we pick all the rocks

and all the goodies out of here.

Hard to do it without an excavator,

so doing it with a log loader is very, very hard to do.

All because of a goose.

[Ross] Alrighty.

This should be exciting.

Boss says he's got a plan there.

Hopefully, extend the skids a little bit longer

which isn't the best way to do this,

but it can be done.

Get this stick to the boss man and shove her into place

and hopefully that solves a few problems.

If this doesn't work, this is gonna [bleep] send him over the top.

Ultimate [bleep] snap show. You watch.

How you making out, Rosscoe?

Oh, we're coming.

Bring her on in.

[Jared] Ross is getting a boomstick for me now.

so I'm just getting close to the water's edge so I can grab it.

It's always really tricky getting close to the edge

'cause if the bank was to unravel

in the water you go and not a good scene.

So trying to make sure that we've got a firmly planted feed on us

'cause the boomsticks are heavy,

and we've got to be very careful to stay out of the water.

[Ross] There we go.

There we go.

Come on, baby.

It's sketching me out.

[Ross] There's got to be better ways to make money than this.

[Adrian] Ether, I don't like using it.

[Dave] We've got smoke coming out of the exhaust now.

-Come on, you [bleep]. -[Jim] Oh, [bleep].

[Rob] I'm tied in with that.

Heads up. Stand back.

Holy [bleep].

[Jared] Just got to be very careful.

It could possibly tip into the water.

We don't want that.

Come on, baby.

[narrator] On the banks of Float Camp,

Jared's under the gun to reopen the operation.

I need this skidway fixed and operational today,

so I can get a log barge in here

and clear out all the wood.

We've lost a lot of money here with the goose,

and I will not be happy until there's logs

going down the skidway and hitting the water.

No splash, no cash.

We're also seeking to get a really good boomstick for me now.

We'll get it in there. We'll get it lashed in.

Beautiful.

Oh, thank God.

It's even got a tapered end.

None of the logs are going to hang up on it.

So, perfect.

This worked really good. We're just going

to get this chain shackled to this chain.

The log can't go anywhere, and it'll be kind of permanently there.

But, uh, obviously, we haven't tested it yet.

We've got to try to get wood moving again

so that we can get this log barge filled.

[narrator] Over 100 miles away in Grizzly River...

[Rob] So, what have we got here?

[narrator] ...Jim and Rob are zeroing in on their second tree

at the newly opened operation.

That's pretty solid.

[narrator] A massive cedar that will go a long way

toward paying down Jared's debt.

[Rob] This tree we're about to tackle is a seven-foot red cedar.

It looks to be about 120 feet tall.

Right now, cedar is the highest value tree out here.

So, this is a nice piece of wood.

It is leaning back pretty hard.

So, this one will have to go, too.

It's limb tied in with it.

And there's a bunch of broken off limbs in the big one.

I don't know if you noticed that on the outside of it.

On the bottom side.

[Jim] Yep.

[Rob] So, we'll have to watch for that.

[Jim] Got some overhead hazards. Yep.

[Rob] Trees that grow together fall together.

A tree that's leaning back is not gonna fall over without that other tree

'cause the limbs are tied together.

[narrator] When trees become this tangled,

falling just one could pull the other straight down on Jim and Rob.

So, their safest bet is to cut both cedars at once.

And try to control their fall together.

So, I'll start with undercut.

Undercut.

Back cut.

My front tree.

Back cut with wedges.

Plan B. Pusher tree.

[narrator] To drop these trees in tandem,

Jim and Rob will make an undercut in the smaller one,

then the seven-footer.

After adding back cuts to both,

they'll use wedges to ease them in the same direction

and hope neither falls too soon.

We're good to go.

Ground debris is good.

[narrator] Like their last target,

falling this tree will be complicated

by the high density canopies that surround Grizzly Camp.

[Rob] All right, make some noise. Yep.

These trees are what's called a widowmaker.

There's a broken branch, and it's just hanging out between other branches.

Any bit of breeze, any slight jarring of this tree

and that could come out prematurely

and it could strike somebody.

And that's definitely why we have a second set of eyes.

Okay. Next one.

What do you think? Start, get this side wedged up first,

then when I tap some wedges you can watch for me.

When we start our back cut, we're gonna put our wedges in,

and we're gonna pound and pound

until we get the right lifting that we're looking for.

Hopefully, we can wedge it up enough to push it over.

If we can't, we'll have to go to a different plant

to put it on the ground as safely as we can.

-Not lifting at all, is it? -[Jim] No.

-Starting to sit back. -Yep.

[Rob] I'm just asking for it.

[bleep] have it break off and go over backwards.

That's her. Let's push it.

We can't wedge this thing up enough

and it's physically not possible to wedge it over.

We have a backup plan, our push tree in the back.

There should be enough to overtake it.

[Jim] I think so. There's so much more force up high than there is down low.

[narrator] Having wedged all they can,

Jim and Rob will use a push tree

to finish the job from a safe distance

and send the limb-tied seeders down like dominoes.

Go more.

Yeah.

Whoo!

She's not going. [bleep]!

I thought for sure that wouldn't take it.

Huh. [bleep]

[Jim] Now what do you want to do?

[narrator] Back near camp...

-[Dave] You okay? -[Adrian] Yep, you bet.

[narrator] ...foreman Dave and bush mechanic Adrian

are trying to save Jared a hundred grand

by bringing a 50-year-old logging truck back from the dead...

-Come on... [grunts] -Dave.

[narrator] ...and putting it back to work.

[Dave] We have electricity.

[Adrian] We have to make sure we have the best connections possible.

It won't need much. Maybe a little spit shine when we're done.

[Adrian] Oh, yeah.

We're going to check the air filter, check the air intake.

If there's any open orifices anywhere,

rodents can climb in, block things up.

You could suck a rat into the engine, shoot her up in the blower.

It wouldn't be good.

Looking pretty clear.

There'd be [bleep] and pests in there if there was rodents.

So we're looking pretty good on that.

These engines are pretty old, and they're nice and simple, fortunately.

They need air, they need fuel, they need oil in 'em.

I think that'll be enough fuel.

[Dave] Well, we're gonna try just a little bump here, okay?

[Adrian] Yep.

[engine misfiring]

I'll just make sure everything's tight.

-Yeah, yeah. -We'll have to check that connection on that one.

[Adrian] I mean, it turned over pretty slow,

so that means if these batteries are as healthy

as Dave says, then that means we have an issue.

Either the starter's bad or the engine's seized up, which I ran into before.

I don't know the history of this thing.

Maybe when it shut down last, it had issues already.

I'm going to try to use ether to get that ignition going,

get the engine speed up, get the cylinder temperature up.

Hopefully, that'll fix the problem.

[narrator] Three times more flammable than diesel,

ether is a great way to jump-start an engine

just to see if she'll run.

Say when.

[Adrian] When.

[engine misfiring]

[Dave] So close.

[Adrian] Okay, hang on.

[narrator] But it does come with some risks.

[Adrian] Ether is a highly combustible fluid.

It's really not good. I don't like using it.

I really do avoid it.

But in these circumstances, especially when we're dealing

with something where we just wanna get it running,

standards get lower and lower, we just gotta make it run.

Ether makes that happen a lot quicker.

[Dave] We got smoke coming out of the exhaust now.

[Adrian] Crank it for a little bit.

[engine misfiring]

[Adrian] Come on, you [bleep]!

[Adrian] Come on, you [bleep]!

[narrator] In an effort to save Jared some much-needed money,

foreman Dave and bush mechanic Adrian

are working to resurrect a half-century-old logging truck

to add to their fleet.

[Dave] Keep her going. Lots of ether.

Give her.

[engine misfiring]

More.

Oh, yeah.

It's alive.

It's alive!

Here she goes.

Hell yeah, dude.

Whoo!

All systems are go on this old girl.

It's really surprising to me

'cause I... I see a lot of this old stuff

and, you know, it's just a dream to get it going.

We're ready to rock and roll.

She'll be load bearing in no time.

For a rainy day and the wipers are on.

-[Adrian] Unreal. -[horns honking]

-[Adrian laughing] -[Dave] Yeah, man!

We're ready to pull out of here, bud.

Want to try her?

You put her into gear for me?

[horn honking]

Up one.

Come on, baby.

Yeah, the brakes on free.

Hold on.

-Yee-haw! -[horn honking]

Whoo!

Turns on a dime, too.

Unreal.

[Dave] I am so happy right now.

Gonna do some donuts.

Gotta have a little bit of fun after all that work.

Mad Max. '80's style.

Ow!

[narrator] Back down at Float Camp...

Jared and Ross are ready to test a fixer-upper of their own.

A skid ramp built to bypass a nesting goose...

[Ross] If we send that barge light,

Jared's not gonna be happy with us at all.

[narrator] ...and get Jared's log trucks back to dumping bundles.

[Jared] We need to get things happening.

This goose, it's costing me a lot of production,

a lot of money, and I don't think

I'm gonna make my target on the log barge.

So we need to get things happening here at Float Camp.

[Ross] See if it works.

See if we can't get those first loads out into the water.

[Jared] If this doesn't pan out, we're in big trouble.

I just signed myself into a heap of debt,

and right now I need all systems go on each camp.

I need them to be producing.

Whoo!

Oh, that's awesome.

-That's it. -[Ross] Yeah!

[Jared] So you see how that boomstick's

getting out further into the water.

Should be able to dump all day. So far, so good.

We're winning today.

Yeah, that looks really good.

[Ross] Well, we can get that log barge now. No excuses.

[Jared] Get it happening.

No splash, no cash.

[Jared] There you go.

[narrator] Back in the hills of Grizzly River...

[Jim] Okay. Um...

Now what do you wanna do?

[Rob] We've got a bit of a problem.

[narrator] ...handfallers Jim and Rob

are trying to get Jared's new logging operation up and running

by putting high-dollar trees down on the ground.

But right now, they have three half-cut cedars that are refusing to topple.

[Rob] We're gonna have to probably start

right out there, I would think.

We tried to push this tree over and nothing's happening.

We don't have enough weight into it.

We can't go in there and cut any more.

It's gonna be too dangerous.

It's gonna be right above us.

[Rob] We're going on to Plan C.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna do

the same thing with this tree here.

We're gonna push this tree over and push it into all that.

[Rob] Hopefully.

[Jim] Uh, generally, when you start thinking backup plans,

you start thinking more than one set of plans.

You kind of wanna take a look at what you have in succession.

Make sure you have more than one pusher.

And you want to take advantage of all your opportunities,

not just be nearsighted and see what's there in front of you.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut a few more trees

and lead it into it, and we'll use the excess force to push this all over.

Hopefully, it all goes according to plan.

Okay.

Next one.

Okay.

[Jim] Higher, the better.

Oh, [bleep].

[bleeping]

Cut and [bleep] wrap.

[bleep]

Drama.

[narrator] Clearly, the push-tree approach isn't working.

[Rob] Oh, let's cut that [bleep] one to the right off.

[narrator] But it has tilted the original limb-tied trees

enough to send them where the fallers want.

[Jim] So I think if we cut that post off, it should hopefully go.

[narrator] To finish the job, Rob will have to drop the smaller tree first.

But doing so means working in one of the most

dangerous situations known to falling.

Directly beneath two massive trees

that are already hanging by a thread.

[Jim] Whoa, whoa!

Get back, get back.

[Dick] That truck's hauled up to three and a half times

the amount of wood that a highway truck can haul.

My grandpa and my great-grandpa

were both off-highway logging truck drivers,

and so this is my great-grandpa.

That was his career load.

Allegedly, that's the heaviest load that was ever hauled into Elk River.

I decided to go and get my Class 1 license.

There were lots of people who were trying to tell me logging, it's dying.

Until they learn how to 3D print houses,

logging's not going to be going away.

[motor whirring]

[Jim] Whoa, whoa!

Get back, get back.

-[Rob] It took it a while. -[Jim] Yeah.

[narrator] At Grizzly River,

Jim and Rob are halfway through falling a pair of stubborn cedars.

But with one of their push trees

still teetering on the seven-footer.

[Jim] Uh, let's cut that [bleep] second one.

[narrator] Rob's last cut will be his most dangerous by far.

[Jim] Heads up.

Stand back.

Keep going.

Better.

[Rob] Holy [bleep]

[Jim] Nice [bleep].

[Rob] He missed four times, and finally it just--

There was enough to break off and fall all by itself.

Didn't go as planned, but whatever. It's on the ground.

-[Jim] Saved out nice, too. -Everything's saved out nice, actually.

They saved right out to the top.

We happened to get two great big prime lengths off. Big bucks.

They should be happy with this.

[Jim] In the logging industry, things don't necessarily always go as planned.

You always want a Plan B. You always want a Plan C.

And as we found out today, things went sideways.

But we kept our heads, and we knew what it would take to do it safely.

Yeah, we probably should have taken more out of the guts of it, I guess.

Live and learn.

Might have [bleep] up.

It's never [bleep] up when they fall over.

[bleep] up when you go home and they're still standing there.

[both laugh]

[Jared] Good morning. How are you?

[Ross] There's the tug, finally.

Okay, we're going over there to look at the barge loading.

-[man] Okay. -We'll see you over there.

[narrator] Back at Float Camp,

after days of production lost to a nesting goose,

it's finally time for Jared to send all the bundles

he can muster onto the log barge and off to market.

[Jared] There she is.

It's a unique feeling right now.

It's very nerve-wracking.

All our hard work, down to six hours of barge loading.

I'm usually pretty excited when that log barge is coming.

I know my payday is coming.

But we were unable to dump logs because of our goose problem.

[Ross] Some big logs in there?

[Jared] Probably not enough.

[narrator] His potential profit is $200,000.

But he won't know how much he's made until the wood is weighed in.

[Jared] I know I'm gonna come short on my barge load,

which means I'm gonna come short on my paycheck.

So it's how bad it actually is,

and we're gonna assess the situation.

But I'm definitely on pins and needles for this.

Rainy, dismal [bleep] day.

Yeah.

[Jared] Definitely some nice wood coming on the barge.

[Ross] It's just not enough.

The last of her.

Still got empty deck space over there.

It's not good.

I don't know what I'm gonna do.

[narrator] Despite their best efforts,

in the end, Float Camp

was only able to fill less than half

of the barge's payload,

which for Jared means less than half of his potential payday.

I lost a lot of money over that goose.

That goose [bleep] me.

[gunshots]

Ready?

Sharpshooter.

Pull.

[Jared] It's a lot of stress.

I already have everything on the line financially.

Stress is bad.

Stress kills you faster than a bus running you over, I think.

[gunshot]

I've seen guys in this business

having heart attacks, having a stroke.

But you look at your crew, they all depend on you.

Everybody's got a mortgage, everybody's got a family.

A lot of people rely on me.

And I'm out there in the trenches with them.

[gunshot]

[narrator] So far, Jared's profits this season stand at $223,000

towards his $1.7 million debt.

[Ross] Pull.

[gunshot]

Your brains and your balls are for your business,

and your heart's for your family is what it comes down to.

But my heart's for my employees as well.

So I can't let my crew down.

-[Ross] So this is where the next spot is? -Yeah.

We're going to have to get the road builders in here right away.

Oh, [bleep]!

I need to get wood down this road,

into that log dump,

and down that [bleep] river,

or I ain't getting the paycheck.

Fire in the hole.

This is ridiculous.