Loggers often used wooden chutes to move cut logs to a central loading place. The chutes were temporary structures, built out of long straight logs called "chute sticks." In gravity chutes, logs slid downhill under their own weight. In trailing chutes, logs were pulled along by cables.

This photo, taken around 1910, shows a trailing chute crossing a trestle near Cook's Camp, near Brennan, Washington. Men sit on the log, which is attached to a cable. Moving logs in chutes was very dangerous, and the log was probably not moving when the photograph was taken.

Notes: The photographer may be Axtell, a photographer based in Edmonds, Washington, who took other photographs at Cook's Camp during this time period. Axtell's given name is unknown.
Webster & Stevens number: 5763