Alabama`s HITREE Logging accesses hard-to

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Swamp Specialist
■ Alabama’s HITREE Logging accesses hard-to-get quality timber.
By Dan Shell
dual-tire machines, “We had trouble bogging down, universals going
out, tires falling off, just a long hard
fight in the mud.”
A year or so later the crew was
working near Perry, Fla., when Huber
met Guy Crawford of Crawford Timber who told him about mat logging.
“He said ‘You need to come see
this,’” Huber remembers, adding that
he took a day and went and watched
Crawford’s crew.
“I was thinking of getting out of
swamp logging, tired of fighting the
mud and having to have deep pockets
to handle all the breakdowns and
stuck machines,” Huber says.
“(Crawford) had a Timbco slinging
wood toward the mat, a shovel was
building the mat, and the skidders
weren’t in the water and fighting so
hard. I thought, ‘Hey I can do this.’”
After mat logging several years,
Huber and a partner bought the
swamp crew from Williston Timber
ANDALUSIA, Ala.
roviding a specialized service for
landowners to deliv★
er more timberland
value, HITREE Logging
offers a light footprint to
access hard-to-get timber stands, with
the equipment and operational knowhow to go where conventional logging companies can’t.
The company, formed in early
2015, is a partnership between
swamp logging veteran Jay Huber
and IndusTREE Logging, created
after Huber’s swamp logging operation needed a capital infusion, and
IndusTREE managers saw an opportunity to access low-ground timber in
a region with plenty of it.
“It was an opportunity to develop
a niche market while being able to
generate logs for our Castleberry
mill,” says Lee Davis, Vice President of IndusTREE, which operates
a large procurement organization, a
logging company, three sawmills
and a pole mill.
The opportunity lies in south
Alabama’s low-ground timberland
tracts that are inaccessible much of
the year or completely inaccessible
with conventional logging systems.
This may include timber that’s fully
eligible for harvest under sustainable
streamside management zone (SMZ)
guidelines but is hard to get to, or
pockets of undamaged timber left
behind after a hurricane or other
weather event hits the region.
P
Loader making five sorts on job site during SLT visit four months ago.
Background
Huber, age 57, had been a farmer
until the early to mid ’90s when he
began doing some logging with his
brother-in-law, Eddie Hodge, owner
of Williston Timber in Williston, Fla.
(and 2014 Southeastern Wood Producers Assn. Logger of the year).
After doing upland logging for
about a year, Williston Timber started a swamp logging crew in 1995
and Huber became foreman. “We
did that about three years, and we
really fought some rough elements,” Huber remembers. “We had
never heard of mat logging.” Even
running with tracked equipment and
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Handling tall timber on low-ground tract south of Brewton, Ala.
DECEMBER 2015 ● Southern Loggin’ Times
and in 1998 formed Southern Timber.
The company did well, buying some
of its own timber and expanding to
three crews by 2004. Yet the extra
responsibilities and travel and the
inability to be in three places at once
frustrated Huber so he sold out and
moved on to other things.
“It just got to where it wasn’t fun
anymore, and it was running us
ragged so we sold out,” Huber says.
He ended up moving to Andalusia,
Ala., where he was doing some land
clearing and other work for sevenplus years when the swamp logging
bug bit again in 2014.
However, working with older
equipment, the fledgling company
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Jay Huber, left, and Lee Davis, Vice President of IndusTREE
Mats may run as long as 2,200-2,300 ft., depending on terrain and timber type.
was having trouble getting off the
ground with an inexperienced crew
and machines prone to downtime. “It
just wasn’t working out,” Huber
remembers.
The company had already been
cutting for IndusTREE’s timber procurement division, and Davis had
seen the potential the operation had.
“Next thing you know we had a
meeting and discussed creating
HITREE Logging, and it’s been a
really smooth partnership ever since,”
Huber says.
First order of business was upgrading equipment: HITREE Logging
added a Tigercat 845B tracked f-b,
Tigercat 250T loader/shovel and
Tigercat 620C skidder to go with an
existing Tigercat 250B loader/shovel,
Caterpillar 525C skidder and Barko
160A loader. “We handpicked some
used equipment, and we’re able to do
all right,” Huber says.
The initially inexperienced crew
has come along now and is much better, Huber notes, adding that the operation hits its goal of 50 loads a week
regularly enough, but is still striving
to average 50 loads a week.
The crew had been on site barely a
week, and SLT was watching the first
mat built for the operation. Huber
notes that the crew may build a mat
as long as 2,200-2,300 feet, “But if
we’re going that distance it has to be
good wood,” Huber says. He adds
that the skidder isn’t constantly
pulling that distance: skids get longer
as the mat is built but grow shorter
with every turn as it gets picked up.
“It really depends on how good the
wood is and how rough the mat is,”
Huber explains. “If it’s really big
wood that’s crooked, then 1,2001,500 feet is a long way.”
On a standard job, mats are built
about 250 feet apart, Huber says,
which is roughly five swaths or so
with the feller-buncher. “We like to
do five passes for each mat—occasionally we do seven (three on each
side) but that means more work on
the shovel and the wood has to be
ton; and hardwood logs were going
to IndusTREE’s hardwood sawmill
at Castleberry.
On site a Tigercat 845 tracked
feller-buncher was dropping stems in
the direction of the mat that were
picked up by a Tigercat 250 loader
and placed on a skidding mat. A
Caterpillar 525D skidder with dual
tire configuration (30.5x32s on the
inside tire and 24.5x32s on the outside; Huber has run Firestone but
doesn’t have a strong brand preference as long as the tire is 16 ply or
better) was making pulls, backing
down the mat to grab a turn, then
traveling forward to high ground. At
the landing, two saw operators
topped and limbed larger stems while
another Tigercat 250 loaded trucks. A
CTR bucking saw made final length
cuts. A local contract trucking operation, H&H Hauling, was handling log
hauling duties.
good enough that the shovel can handle it quickly,” Huber notes. “Occasionally we’ll go wider than 250 feet
to finish out a block.”
The veteran swamp logger says
each tract is different, and he tries to
be pragmatic and go with what works
in each situation. “We’re not dead set
on getting the last tree no matter the
cost because we’re not that way,”
Huber says, “but we’re not going to
crybaby our way out of a situation
where we know it’s a tough area but
it’s holding good wood.”
Contacted for an update in mid
November after the August visit by
SLT, Huber noted the crew was still
in the same watershed and barely a
mile away from its location in
August.
Several rain events this past fall
had led to issues with the road, but
landowners had been great to work
with and dropped some gravel in sev-
Operations
Southern Loggin’ Times found
HITREE Logging working a 150acre tract of timber in way south Alabama, just north of the Florida state
line near Brewton. Landowner Cedar
Creek Land & Timber had initially
scheduled a 100-acre job, but added
another 50 acres after an aerial photo
revealed a pocket of timber adjacent
the initial work area.
According to Huber, the job was
yielding a “substantial volume” of
older age class pine on the all-natural
stand that included slash, loblolly and
longleaf pine, along with oak, poplar,
gum and even some cypress and
juniper. Roughly half of production
was in hardwood pulpwood, destined
for Georgia-Pacific’s nearby Brewton
linerboard and cartonboard plant.
Meanwhile, pine pulp was hauled
to International Paper’s Cantonment, Fla. paper mill; pine sawlogs
with 8 in. and larger tops and poles
were going to T.R. Miller in Brew-
Operators build mats that are 250 feet apart—roughly five cutting swaths with the buncher.
From left: Justin Banks, Ryan Carter, driver Eric McMillan, Jay Huber, William Hayes, driver William Kelley, Terry Williams Jr.
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eral key areas on the haul road to
keep production moving.
“Most of our issues are with the
road or with the landing area when it
gets really wet,” Huber says. “Sometimes water gets into the woods, but
most of the streamsides and areas we
cut don’t get that deep.”
Business
One thing that IndusTREE has
brought to HITREE Logging is a
move toward more cost control and
accountability. “They’re real good
about helping us keep costs down,
they run an efficient ship and are
real easy to work with,” Huber says.
In the partnership, Huber’s wife
Pam keeps track of day-to-day
weight tickets and payroll. The
company uses xero.com on-line
business accounting software that
allows Pam in Andalusia and IndusTREE Logging’s bookkeeping staff
100+ miles away in Wetumpka to
both keep track of operations and
expenses, receivables and payables.
HITREE Logging works with
GCR Tire in Atmore for its tire
needs and Tidewater Equipment in
Evergreen for equipment service,
though Huber says they try to do as
much service and repair work as
possible in-house.
Huber says he’s especially proud
of the crew, which started in 2014
with very little experience. Huber
says feller-buncher operator
William Hayes had some experience logging in upland operations,
“But the other ones didn’t know a
9/16 wrench from a porcupine when
they started,” he says with a laugh.
Huber says Hayes is a workhorse
for the crew, and with some recent
f-b mechanical issues has been
known to work at night or on the
weekends to keep up production.
(During SLT’s visit he also showed
some fancy felling skills in tall timber, dropping big stems neatly and
efficiently for the shovel to handle.)
“He doesn’t like us to catch up with
him,” Huber says.
Looking back, the logger says, “I
didn’t think it was going to take as
long for us to come together and
develop a work rhythm, but we’re
there now.” Huber adds that he
lost a really good loader man several months back, and since then
Huber measures a nice pole log.
he’s tried to cross-train operators
so everyone has some familiarity
with other equipment and roles on
the job if a quick change has to be
made.
“I’m trying not to get caught if
we ever lose another key person,”
Huber says.
Looking ahead, Huber says
there are no plans for expansion
right now, that the crew has only
just recently gotten up to solid
production. If anything, he says,
the next step is likely a fellerbuncher upgrade since the crew’s
expertise has caught up with the
older machine’s productivity.
“We’ll keep it running, but it is a
15-year-old machine,” Huber says.
“It’s still good for about 40 loads a
week, but we need a little more
than that.”
“The crew has gotten better, and
I’m really happy with the progress
we’ve made,” Huber says. “We
work at a reasonable price, and we
try our best to do an exceptional
SLT
job.”
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DECEMBER 2015 ● Southern Loggin’ Times