Maiden Voyage – Our First Timber Cruise

By Patrick Larsen, Regional Manager

Our sister company, Transcon Environmental, Inc., is working closely with Idaho Power on a new transmission line project. The line stretches from southern Idaho up to eastern Oregon and includes many different projects happening simultaneously.

Idaho Power also needed a firm to perform timber cruising for this line. Timber cruising is the process of measuring forest stands to determine stand characteristics, such as average tree sizes, volume, and quality. Typically, cruising is used to obtain a volume estimation to appraise and prepare timber sales. In this case, Idaho Power

Timber Cruising Tools

• Relascope: the relascope is a multi-use instrument for forest inventory. It is primarily used to find the height of a tree, the basal area of a tree, and the diameter of a tree anywhere along the bole.

• Survey tape: a large measuring tape

• Rangefinder: for estimating heights

• Computer and GIS program: to plot trees

• ATV: for accessing properties required a timber cruise to help them determine monetary offers for property owners whose timber would be impacted by the new line build.

Transcon referred Idaho Power to CNUC. Once things were finalized from the contract perspective, the real work began. Consulting Utility Forester (CUF) Keith Lorenz lives in the region and has extensive timber cruising and forest management experience from his past job working with and for his father in their small business. Keith was happy to accept this challenge and played a very crucial role in coordinating and executing CNUC’s first-ever timber cruising project.

Keith spent many hours viewing software demos from various suppliers, and eventually working with our selected vendor to customize the chosen software further. Because this was not a traditional timber cruise, the software had to be tweaked to support the unique needs of each property. When the software was finalized, Keith was able to start cruising! Each week, as Keith cruised properties, the team at Idaho Power worked closely with the property owners to secure access for Keith. This project lasted from August to December 2022. All properties with secured permission have been cruised. Keith may return to a few outstanding properties when permission is granted.