That’d be an awesome tag line under 2dogs name…..just sayin…..


Carry on.

Obviously, there's more area with steeper terrain up there. However, there's some hills in North Monroe that you can't walk down without rope.

It was open upland hardwoods. If I remember correctly, they couldn't cut it cause of Red Hills Salamanders. That was some of the best turkey hunting that I've ever had.

I have worked trackhoes and dozers a lot in them slopes. Its very dangerous. Sometimes its impossible. We have to either pull with cables or tear the ground up to lessen the grade to handle the situation. I dread clearing jobs in the mountains in north bama. I been very lucky but i have had way too many close calls. So many that im leary everytime i push a tree over. I clear the land. A local loggin company logs our jobs. We work together on clearing jobs when there is enough timber for them to turn a profit.

Its funny they always tell me...man we will be lucky to break even on these jobs....as they are buying brand new equipment!

There is a difference to me on how some log jobs. Some just make a mess and waste a lot of good timber by beating it up or cutting it then never looking good to retrieve it. Amazing how much good pulp, cedar or oaks are totally wasted. Some employees are too lazy to save wood

But for steep slopes, my vote would be bankhead forest. Not jackson county.

Never been on Bankhead , but I hear there's hills and hollows and I'm sure some steep areas as well as other areas of the state have some. We just have hundreds of thousands of acres of them in NE Bama. Our loggers just think it's normal I suppose, they don't know anything else. There's a couple of super rough , remote tracts up around the state line that have been worked with helicopters. Pretty good show.

Yeah, some skidder rash is gonna happen , but some of them almost seem to go out of the way to destroy trees they don't have to.

Yeah jackson county is rough. I shoulda used better words. Bankhead area is bad. But all of jackson county is rough. Jackson county is the prettiest area i have seen in all of alabama.

I don't know where they are but I was told last week they had bought some special type of equipment for cutting slopes. That's what I was told, now I'll tell you what I KNOW: Neither one of those brothers elevator goes to the top floor. How they have lived this long is a miracle. One is an artist. I have a turkey painting on my wall right now he painted. IIRC he did the duck stamp one year. Studied in Paris. He taught me to Turkey hunt. One morning he picked me up and we went off, stopped and walked...and walked....and walked. Finally got to a field and we it started getting daylight i noticed a treestand. A while later I noticed it was MY treestand. He had taken me poaching on my own property. I could go on and on from him blowing up ( I mean with dynamite) a loaner car from the dealership accidentally to him causing a search for a crashed plane that didn't happen.

The other brother is rude, crude, and just socially unacceptable. Head so flat he could look through a skeleton key hole with both eyes. Been married 2 times I know of. Very rich and very beautiful women. I don't understand it.

But I'll ask where they are this week.

Sure that's not the Brown brothers????

You know the first girl he married. They own quite a few acres on Cedar Creek but most of there operation is around Autaugaville with one of her brothers running it.

Sounds like a real pair of winners. I'm bettin' they bit off more than they can chew up here and will be headed back to more "friendly" terra soon.

Yup. Know who that is

This thread needs its own spin off........ but anyway.

I bought all those good logs off of Bill, and I’ve been all over those “steep slopes”. That’s honestly the gentlest side of the mountain tract I’ve ever set foot on. I was impressed with Bill he’s one of the most knowledgeable loggers I’ve ever been around. I don’t know if he ever studied in Paris or not but from what I understand he’s a
former Green Beret. I really enjoyed working with him and I hope he gets back up this way soon but honestly there are very few tracts up this way gentle enough for him to get his equipment on. He ended up having to leave about 1/3 of that tract standing and pull out and head back south. No shame on him; he did an excellent job but some of that is gonna have to be worked with a chainsaw and a cable skidder just like most of the rest of Jackson county.

The problem for loggers up here is not so much steep...... there is steep ground everywhere. It’s the big country and the rocks and the long drags. Most aren’t prepared to have to drag logs upwards of a mile to get em to a suitable bunching ground that you can get a truck into.
I know a real good logger in Tennessee that cuts stuff way steeper than we have here with a dozer and and little 440 skidder no problem; but thats the difference in hills and mountains. Don’t matter how steep a hill is if you can drag it right to the foot and load it.
Same guy bought a good tract in PRV and struggled bad because of the rocks and the long drags. It’s just different country.

Small world .

As I said, that's what I was told. Sounds like he's not cutting very steep slopes. Don't know where he is now. He was an Army Ranger, not Green Beret. Kirk was military special forces also. Bill had a bad bicycle wreck in Paris that sent him back home. Kirk had a tree fall on him that about killed him. They are likable people but, like I said, their elevators don't go to the top floor.

Most loggers that I know want to make money.
They are not terribly concerned with impressing folks on how steep of terrain they can log.

Up here most of the money is in the steeps. The majority of the easy stuff has been gone for a long time.

The steep , rough , rocky mountain sides are where you make the money up here, that's where the big $ timber grows. There is some river bottom timber but 95% is in the mountains.

I think it's in their blood. Dang if I would get in the logging business trying to make money. EVERYTHING is against you and out of your control. It's a tough business around here. Now we have several logging crews around us out of Florida. They are capable of cutting swamps like no one else left in business around here can. Talked to one group last week....waiting on permits to cross a bridge. Another one of those sitting, waiting "out of your control" situations. Then the mills put them on a quota or shut them down all together. It's just tough for the loggers in the woods.

Are helicopters not economically feasible? Or the cut down still too much of a problem?

Choppers would be feasible now in lots of places because the hardwood markets are so good. It costs a lot of money to fly em out though. Somewhere between 35-40 cents a board foot just to get it back to the landing