Selection harvesting of tolerant hardwoods typically stops during the spring and early summer when there is heightened concern over damage to soils and residual stems from felling trees and machine activity. A feller-buncher and an 8-wheel forwarder modified into a clambunk skidder were evaluated as a lower impact alternative to conventional cable or grapple skidders to operate during the traditional shutdown period within acceptable guidelines for soil disturbance, residual stem damage and trail occupancy. This study showed that the feller-buncher and clambunk skidder used for single-tree and group selection harvesting could potentially extend the logging season into the spring shutdown period without exceeding local site impact guidelines.