Clarissa Kell | Daily Press Bryan Reitter, a forester for St. John Forest in Spalding Township, wades through the snow as he prepares to measure the diameter of oversized logs.

ESCANABA — With the extreme temperatures and continual snowstorms dumping large amounts of snow, the last couple of weeks in the Upper Peninsula have proven this winter to be a brutal one — especially for the local logging industry.

Trevor St. John, the director of forest resources at St. John Forest in Spalding Township, said the cold temperatures are actually beneficial for logging operations.

“We really depend on freezing ground. We have a lot of lowland swamps around here so we can really only access a lot of those sites in the winter time — and areas with sensitive soils,” he said.

The cold has been especially welcomed by the St. John’s because they have been able to catch up from previous winters that had milder weather.

“It’s much easier when we have these good cold snaps,” St. John said.

Another benefit to the cold weather is branches snap off trees easier. St. John explained this makes the process of delimbing a tree quicker.

Although St. John said the cold weather is beneficial for their logging operations, it can be an hindrance to the log trucks that haul wood to mills.

Wayne Mathias of Mathias Trucking in Bark River, said when it’s real cold it can be hard on the trucks and even become difficult starting trucks in the morning.

“My shop only fits two trucks. So two trucks will be inside and two will be outside. When it’s real cold we leave the two outside run all night,” he said.

Another issue caused by freezing temperatures is logs can become slippery.

Mathias said when it is really cold and they’re chaining a load, they sometimes will pack the load down additional logs to get chains tighter.

“Sometimes we even dig a hole and dump sand on a load,” he said.

Although the cold hasn’t caused too much of an issue, the snow has caused some issues for logging operations.

St. John explained snow is normal — it is just the amount that came in such a short period of time that has caused issues.

“The snow doesn’t slow down our machines any, but the snow removal gets hectic,” he said. “The amount of snow isn’t unusual, it’s just the fact that it all came within a week’s time, and that’s kind of put a lot of stress on us to just get the roads cleared for the log trucks and for our crew to get back to these jobs.”

St. John noted he’s already been stuck twice with his plow truck trying to get to other equipment to help in the snow removal process.

“Sometimes you can get machines trapped in the woods when you get a big snowstorm and then you can not have the right equipment to get back to your machines,” he said.

The biggest problem the St. John’s have faced this winter due to the snowstorms is not being able to start some jobs because of the lack of access.

“We have a job — we haven’t started it yet but we need to keep the road open for it — and the first part of our access goes through a farm field, and the drifting there gets overwhelming for our trucks to plow through it,” St. John said.

Getting into some jobs ends up taking a lot of time and burns a lot of fuel, he added.

Keeping snow off the logging roads isn’t just needed for access to jobs, but also is a necessity for roads in the lowland swamp areas so the ground can freeze deep enough.

“(On) some of these swamp roads the snow acts as an insulator and we want the swamp roads to freeze down hard. Even though I’m not logging back there yet, I will be later this winter, so I need to keep the snow off the swamp roads so the frost can get deeper in,” St. John said.

While measuring out in the wood yard near the St. John Forest Products office in Spalding Township, St. John recorded around 30 inches of snow.

He said he keeps track of snow accumulation in the land owned by the company. According to his measurements, in LaBranch there is about 30 inches of snow accumulation as well.

“It’s been five years since we had a winter quite like this. I think this year it is going to be much shorter than it was last time we had a hard winter like this,” he said. “It’s just it all came at once.”

Mathias said snow doesn’t bother him or his employees at all. He explained they go all over the U.P. so they’re driving through snowstorms every day.

“At home six inches of snow (in a day) is a big deal, but where we work we just call it a Tuesday,” he said.

When it is whiteout conditions, Mathias said they take it easier and make sure there is enough distance between them and other vehicles on the road.

He noted sometimes trucks can gain 4,000 to 6,000 pounds while driving through heavy snow just from snow accumulating on the truck.

“We stop often during heavy snow to wipe off lights, check chains — just safety precautions,” he said.

Out of all the crazy weather the U.P. has seen the last couple of weeks, Mathias said the biggest issue Mathias Trucking has faced this winter was the rain. Mathias said rain is worse than snow and freezing temperatures because rain during the winter causes roads to buckle when it settles in cracks on roads.

“That is harder on our trucks than the cold,” he said.