the reason for your low log prices is likely the size. most mills are now set up for smaller stock.
i have friends in western Oregon who are getting all time record high prices for logs.
The larger logs are actually the most valuable, because they have quite a lot of clear lumber in the bottom thirty feet or so, but most of them are
smaller. Some of the trees I am taking out are too small for saw logs, and pine is at the bottom of the list of desirable fire wood, so I am
shredding and burning most of them.
In California there are millions of trees killed by fires, as well as beetles the last couple of years. There aren't as many smaller, independent
mills operating anymore, and the major timber companies are concentrating on harvesting their own dead, standing timber before it rots in place.
Four years ago I got about two thousand dollars for a truck load of similar logs, and last year it was down to five hundred. This year, the same
trucker told me that it would be a gamble to break even on his truck cost by the time the mill scaled the "distressed" timber.
By the way, the mill is not allowed to buy logs without an approved harvest plan, which adds hoops to jump through, and additional cost.
Sorry for the hijack, non of this timber is on the way to Baja!
