Hanover
“Roll out!” he bellowed. “Roll out! Spread out! Drag and track! Don’t twist — lift!”
Scrambling to bring the trunk home, one of his Jills — mixed-gender forestry events are called “Jack and Jill” competitions — stumbled and fell.
“Roll out of the way!” Carsten said, as the next pair of woodsmen took over, pushing the log back in the other direction. He gave her a smile as she got up. “You OK?”
Dartmouth College on Saturday hosted the second high-energy day of its Woodsmen’s Weekend, a forestry championship that brought at least 14 college teams from across the Northeast.
That afternoon, hundreds of young adults in plaid, camo and camo-plaid came to the Fullington Farm on Lyme Road to test their skills in log rolling, “decking” and the “pulp toss.” Later on, the crowd hung up their picks and axes and gathered on an embankment to watch the brawniest among them chop their way through a pro-league qualifier.
The weekend continues today on the Dartmouth Green.
Carsten, a former professional woodsman, coaches the forestry team at Morrisville State College, a SUNY branch not far from Syracuse. Morrisville historically has been a middling performer, but Carsten hopes one day to lead them to the regional championship, and even beyond that.
Some of his students are capable enough to be pros themselves, he said, where they’ll run into “big money, big toys and big tools.”
Alumni teams were there, too, including many of Colby College’s graduates, who wore forest-green tees with “AXE” spelled out in Greek letters.
Kate Braemer, a 2007 graduate who now works in hospital event planning and development, led off the pulp toss with a perfect score. Tall and robust, she launched four logs into the air, landing them between two posts standing a few yards away — like a woodsy version of horseshoes.
Then she cheered on her teammates, who she said had become like a family to her. Whereas undergraduate friendships might last only four years, the alumni team goes on forever.
“Yes!” she boomed. “Line it up! Do it again! Further! Harder!”
Woodsmen — or at least a cross-section of those present on Saturday — have a hard time articulating what draws them to the sport. Part of it seems to be about the atmosphere: rivals cheer each other on, and, even after a loss, teammates exchange cheery shoves and slaps on the back.
“It’s not baseball,” several separate attendees said by way of explanation.
And then there is the sheer pleasure of wielding shiny tools that chop and saw. Before he came to Dartmouth, Christian Trejo only occasionally had split firewood in his native Tucson, Ariz., which is surrounded by the Sonoran Desert. At a college activities fair, he spotted the woodsmen. His eyes traveled to their axes and saws.
“I was like, sure,” he said, grinning.
Although Braemer, her friends and many of the collegiate competitors are amateurs with no professional intentions, some other schools — Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks; and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse — are training their students for careers in the woods.
“Some of these people will probably actually be foresters,” Braemer said.
If they don’t end up in the industry, some woodsmen competitors still may use their skills on the pro circuit. The professional leagues, sponsored by the chainsaw and power tool company Stihl, bring woodsmen from all over the country to vie for cash prizes and prestige.
Andrew O’Connell, one of Carsten’s Morrisville woodsmen, was among those hoping on Saturday to earn a ticket to national finals Milwaukee. Lithe and deceptively strong, with a sturdy pair of spectacles on his nose, he placed seventh in last year’s qualifier, having smashed his big toe while practicing without boots the day before.
“This time you don’t have an excuse,” a teammate told him, gruffly but fondly.
The top three woodsmen would take home new, high-quality axes. But O’Connell was aiming for higher goals — the first-place trophy, and then the pros.
“I already have an axe,” he said. “I want to win it.”
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.