The bright blue and white K-Max helicopter hovered above a pile of limbed logs recently with a 200-foot metal cable swinging from the chopper’s midsection.

At the end of the cable, four skinny trees swung like toothpicks on a thread. With ease, the pilot lowered the aircraft to the landing dock, released the trees and spun away. Within a minute he had returned, carrying more logs from the steep forest on Odell Butte, on the Crescent Ranger District on the Deschutes National Forest.

Although logging by helicopter makes up only 10 percent of the logging done on the Crescent Ranger District, the maneuverable aircraft are an essential tool when it comes to cutting down and removing trees with less of an impact, said Neil Bosworth, natural resources team leader for the ranger district.

”It is more expensive than logging on the ground, but helicopter logging has very little impact when it comes to soils and erosion,” he said.

In order to log on Odell Butte, the logging company that bought the timber sale from the Forest Service had to use helicopters for portions because in parts the land had more than a 30 percent grade. According to Forest Service regulations, skids and tractors may be used for logging land that has less than a 30 percent grade.

The sale, known as the ”Yard Sale,” will produce about 1.5 million board feet of timber and will cost the agency about $130,000 to plan, sell and administer, according to Bosworth.

Crown Pacific bought the sale and subcontracted the logging to Grizzly Mountain Aviation, Inc., which has two helicopters, company forester Don Rooper said.

Rooper said the cost of the entire logging operation for the Yard Sale, including the helicopter time, the ground crew, the chopper mechanic and refueling and more, comes out to about $2,300 per hour.

His company is paid by the volume of timber they deliver to the Crown Pacific mill at Gilchrist each day, he said. That means the operation strives for efficiency.

”We have to move a lot of volume to make it profitable,” he said.

Equally important is that the logging company adheres to the regulations and restrictions imposed by the Forest Service, said Linda Fitzer, timber sale administrator for the Deschutes National Forest.

That means cutting all of the trees the Forest Service silviculturist marks with blue paint. Some of those trees are skinny – only five inches at the crown in diameter – which means they are likely not worth money. Nonetheless, agency officials require the loggers to remove those trees along with the more robust ones in order to accomplish the desired result, which is a forest that has some of the excess material removed, Bosworth said.

He said that marks a shift in forest management with an emphasis on protecting the ecosystem, not on selling a lot of trees.

”Our primary purpose is not to sell timber,” he said. ”It is to improve the ecosystem.”

In many of the forests east of the Cascade Mountains that fall within the boundary of the Northwest Forest Plan, which protects spotted owl habitat, that means officials have to create nesting, roosting and foraging habitat, he said.

While logging helps in some instances to accomplish that goal, Bosworth said some types of logging can compact soils and create major disturbances.

Bosworth said many timber sales look ugly immediately upon completion, though after several years trees take root and help restore an area.

Helicopter logging, by contrast, leaves little mark on the land.

In one area on Odell Butte, the signs that loggers had been on the ground were newly cut stumps, a small path where a cutting machine had driven through to lop trees from their roots, and some branches on the ground.

Rooper said he has seen an increase in helicopter logging as environmental concerns have changed the nature and direction of traditional timber cutting.

”In light of a lot of the environmental standards, we are doing a lot more helicopter logging of what would have been logged on the ground in cases before,” he said.

Environmentalist Tim Lillebo of the Oregon Natural Resources Council agreed that helicopter logging does not disturb soil as much as ground logging. However, he said issues still arise if the agency allows loggers to remove large, fire resistant trees during the sale.

”The problem is cutting down the trees in the first place,” Lillebo said. ”It doesn’t matter how you take it out of there if you are cutting the large, fire resistant old-growth trees. And if they are going to use helicopters there is more likelihood they will allow the cutting of those large (and valuable) trees to help pay for the cost.”

Rachel Odell can be reached at 541-617-7811 or rodell@bendbulletin.com.