Related Information: Loaders

Log trucks are the most common link between the logging unit and the mill that will process the logs into wood products.

Before there were log trucks, however, people harvesting timber used all kinds of transportation methods for getting the logs to the mill. One popular method in the late 1800's (and used in some places well into the mid 1900's) was splash-damming a river. Splash damming involved blocking a river with timber until a huge volume of water built up...
	...then blowing the dam with dynamite so the swollen river could carry the timber downstream. Logs would then be collected and processed in riverside mills. Nearly all the early logging was done close to water, especially rivers, so that loggers could slide logs into the water and float them to the nearest sawmill— rivers provided the transportation!
Another early transportation method included using teams of horses or oxen to pull loads of logs downhill on skid roads.
	In the late 1800s we began to use steam donkeys (steam-powered yarders) to pull logs to landings. We also began to build immense systems of train tracks so locomotives could do the haulingfrom the landing! Because locomotives weren't limited to working near water, loggers could go deeper into the woods to cut wood.

By the 1920s, when log trucks and tractors were introduced to Northwest forests, hundreds of miles of railroad tracks had been built.We don't see railroad logging any more, mainly because log trucks offer the same mobility, and more! With well-designed logging road systems access to harvest units is easier, less costly, and less damaging to the forested landscape.