When Steve Kluver talks about the extreme conditions that made him decide to buy his new harvesting head, he's talking about things like mistletoe, red fir and limby pines. 

That's what he deals with every day in the North Idaho woods, and his Log Max 7000XT processing head, one of the new heavy duty XTreme Series, handles them well. 

"No question these are tough times," Kluver admits. "I've been logging for 24 years and this is as tough as I remember it."

Kluver and his partner Jay Cates have owned their company, KC Logging of Sandpoint, Idaho, since 1994. If extreme conditions require tough equipment, tough times demand serious measures to make ends meet.

"We've been putting in more hours than before," says Kluver. "The crew made the decision to work the extra hours. We looked at everything we could do - refinance at lower interest rates, do more maintenance ourselves. We try to save money everywhere we can. The cost of fuel is what's hitting us hardest right now."

The company works with two crews - Kluver's handles the mechanical operations and Cates' takes care of yarding. Operations are about one-third yarding and two-thirds mechanical. Kluver's crew works with a Valmet 445 feller-buncher, which he runs, and John Deere 648 grapple skidders to feed the processor at the landing. That's where the new Log Max 7000XT mounted on a CAT 320 C does its job, along with a Circo 285 loader.

The yarding side of the operation is handled by Cates' crew with a Link-Belt 98 yarder, Acme mechanical carriage and John Deere 2054 trackmount.

"Using the processor on whole trees at the landing instead of at the stump is more productive for us," says Kluver.

It seems like Log Max designed the XTreme Series with loggers like him in mind. They can choose between a dedicated harvester or processor to provide optimal performance at the stump or from the deck.

The company has owned the Log Max 7000XT since November 2007. Buying new equipment in times like these was strictly due to necessity.

"The old Lako harvester head we had since 2002 just wore out," says Kluver. "It wasn't holding up and it was hard to get parts. We needed something that just keeps working."

The partners proceeded with caution before deciding on the purchase. "I'd been studying the Log Max," says Kluver. "It's one of the top two dangle processors and offered us the best deal and best support. The mechanic for the company, James, helped me decide. He's a real honest, hard-working guy, the kind you can trust, and he recommended it." The head was purchased through Log Max dealer Triad Machinery in Spokane, Washington.

Speaking to Kluver in April at the end of mud season, when the crews had been off for a couple of months, he said the Log Max had really shown its stuff that winter. "It's been through some extreme duty and extreme weather and it worked great for us, with very little downtime."