It was a windy day and the first head snapped early with no real hinge, the wood was cooked. I was in two minds but I decided that being on it would allow me to rotate around the stem if the head went the wrong way - if I was on my way down when it came down then I would be unable to avoid it.
The wind is blowing to the right. The head is sitting straight back. It's being pulled forward. I'm off to the left and behind the hinge. It was the best place to be in the situation - it was the only direction the tree was unlikely to fail and would allow me to easily rotate around if it did start to go that way.
If you look at the size of me and look at the distance to the tops you'll see it definitely isn't just 10ft up!
There is a river behind me with a retaining wall that couldn't be damaged. The heads needed to go this way and pulling the main stem made that possible - you couldn't force the heads this way without climbing even higher to place a rope and hoping that the wood held on long enough - based on how the first half of the tree (which was either felled or slashed) completely failed to hold or have any fibre in the hinge, that seemed unlikely to work.
Working with crispy dead stiff like that can be a real challenge. My big concern with pulling like that is the possibility of the hinge breaking before the top is falling where its supposed to. I have to assume you considered all your options and picked the one you were most comfortable with. Sometimes we only have a couple options and they're both shitty. Can't tell you what I would've done, but pulling with a winch while gaffed into that crispy thing would probably be one of my last choices. I've done trees that were so bad I literally threw lines in the tops and snapped them out one by one without any cutting. Can't really get away with that if you have valuable targets underneath though.
Nicely done. Stay safe out there
My biggest concern was definitely the hinge breaking prematurely. Or the stem breaking somewhere that wasn't the hinge. We talked about it on site for a while before doing it this way but it felt like the least shitty of all the options. I would have preferred to cut and leave before pulling but I felt like I had more control over my position staying up.
The safest way, and the way the settlers would've approached this would be to strap a bunch of tannerite to that sucker and then light it up with the blicky.
Yeah dude, good job, people love to take the 2secs to criticize and act like they know all about the situation. We climbers know what call to make through training, individual circumstances and intuition. The “you should have” commenters can go stuff themselves
There is always the assumption that the operator has made a critical error and simply doesn't know what they're doing, rather than the possibility that there is so much information and context that are not shared in a 20 second clip of cutting which might have informed their decisions.
Yeah being on site is key, thats why i never do quotes off of photos, even though it would save a lot of driving haha, spacing of landing zone and access is huge!
I had a dead tree break two feet below my gaffs and about 4' feet below my cut. Dead trees can't be trusted to break where you want. The tree couldn't be left because there was a main line and tap on two sides and a house on the third. Should have used a bucket truck on it.
I fell straight down and kept thinking "Don't fuck this up" as I was falling, landed feet first and got knocked out by the tree. I was very lucky I didn't hit anything that would have spun me and I wasn't tied to the tree.
I was sore for about a week, I was about 30 ft or 10 meters up...about high as the wire.
edit: Dead trees Sheesh ....keep pulling after it starts falling is always a good habit
Sounds scary man. You went down with the piece?
I really try not to pull on dead wood im tied into and definitely avoid any high or leveraged deadwood climbs. I think im on the cautious end but dont really know I dont judge others too hard, our choices our consequences
I tied the limb off so the ground crew could pull the limb around. I'm pretty sure the limb was overhanging the wire. I steadied myself with my left hand and sawed right to left with a 21 " bow saw. I notched it pretty deep. I climbed down a couple of steps and told the crew to pull. (we were a six- or seven-man crew) When they pulled it snapped the branch below me. Usually, I would notch the limb and pull it around so it wouldn't slap the wire. I watched the ground come up, I figured it was going to hurt a some but I was ready for it. The only surprise was how my legs collapsed; they didn't seem to slow me down a bit. The next day my foreman tried to prove I wasn't hurt by having me spray stobs while the rest of the crew sat in the truck. I went to their Doctor the next day.
Ik think I would climb down before they started pulling..
It was a windy day and the first head snapped early with no real hinge, the wood was cooked. I was in two minds but I decided that being on it would allow me to rotate around the stem if the head went the wrong way - if I was on my way down when it came down then I would be unable to avoid it.
Surely having your face in line with the cut was not ideal. I think you got lucky.
The wind is blowing to the right. The head is sitting straight back. It's being pulled forward. I'm off to the left and behind the hinge. It was the best place to be in the situation - it was the only direction the tree was unlikely to fail and would allow me to easily rotate around if it did start to go that way.
Climb down with a teetering back cut lol?
Way higher risk doing something like that.
If you trust it enough to hinge over, then why not climb up another 10' and take the tops out?
If you look at the size of me and look at the distance to the tops you'll see it definitely isn't just 10ft up!
There is a river behind me with a retaining wall that couldn't be damaged. The heads needed to go this way and pulling the main stem made that possible - you couldn't force the heads this way without climbing even higher to place a rope and hoping that the wood held on long enough - based on how the first half of the tree (which was either felled or slashed) completely failed to hold or have any fibre in the hinge, that seemed unlikely to work.
Working with crispy dead stiff like that can be a real challenge. My big concern with pulling like that is the possibility of the hinge breaking before the top is falling where its supposed to. I have to assume you considered all your options and picked the one you were most comfortable with. Sometimes we only have a couple options and they're both shitty. Can't tell you what I would've done, but pulling with a winch while gaffed into that crispy thing would probably be one of my last choices. I've done trees that were so bad I literally threw lines in the tops and snapped them out one by one without any cutting. Can't really get away with that if you have valuable targets underneath though. Nicely done. Stay safe out there
Appreciate it mate!
My biggest concern was definitely the hinge breaking prematurely. Or the stem breaking somewhere that wasn't the hinge. We talked about it on site for a while before doing it this way but it felt like the least shitty of all the options. I would have preferred to cut and leave before pulling but I felt like I had more control over my position staying up.
That’s a gorgeous tree, what species is it?
It was a UK sycamore which is Acer pseudoplatanus.
Awesome, they look amazing when they’ve got all their leafs - appreciate the info
Lovely trees when on their own like this and left to grow. Very dominant in a woodland for several reasons and can easily outgrow a smaller space.
Looks great man. Hows the weather where you are? I fee like I’m jealous, bitter cold in my part of the world right now.
The safest way, and the way the settlers would've approached this would be to strap a bunch of tannerite to that sucker and then light it up with the blicky.
Trees that dead are extremely dangerous. I'm astonished that nothing fell from above to strike the worker below.
Me too! I was on edge the whole time.
There was no need for a climber up in that dead tree after it was roped off. It could have just as easily been cut from the ground.
Also, that single rope looked awful puny. This didn't look professional at all.
The tree was retained for habitat - this was the final cut.
The single rope was 12mm and rated for 3500kg / 7700lbs attached to a 1500kg winch.
Yeah dude, good job, people love to take the 2secs to criticize and act like they know all about the situation. We climbers know what call to make through training, individual circumstances and intuition. The “you should have” commenters can go stuff themselves
Thanks man.
There is always the assumption that the operator has made a critical error and simply doesn't know what they're doing, rather than the possibility that there is so much information and context that are not shared in a 20 second clip of cutting which might have informed their decisions.
Yeah being on site is key, thats why i never do quotes off of photos, even though it would save a lot of driving haha, spacing of landing zone and access is huge!
I quoted from a photo once and got it so wrong I had to walk away when I went to do it. Never again!
I had a dead tree break two feet below my gaffs and about 4' feet below my cut. Dead trees can't be trusted to break where you want. The tree couldn't be left because there was a main line and tap on two sides and a house on the third. Should have used a bucket truck on it.
Dead trees are always a gamble. Bucket is definitely the way to do it!
How bad were you hurt?
I fell straight down and kept thinking "Don't fuck this up" as I was falling, landed feet first and got knocked out by the tree. I was very lucky I didn't hit anything that would have spun me and I wasn't tied to the tree.
I was sore for about a week, I was about 30 ft or 10 meters up...about high as the wire.
edit: Dead trees Sheesh ....keep pulling after it starts falling is always a good habit
Whoa, Helmet kept your cranium together?
Sounds scary man. You went down with the piece?
I really try not to pull on dead wood im tied into and definitely avoid any high or leveraged deadwood climbs. I think im on the cautious end but dont really know I dont judge others too hard, our choices our consequences
Cowboy outfit on the ROW. We never tied off, it was production work.
I tied the limb off so the ground crew could pull the limb around. I'm pretty sure the limb was overhanging the wire. I steadied myself with my left hand and sawed right to left with a 21 " bow saw. I notched it pretty deep. I climbed down a couple of steps and told the crew to pull. (we were a six- or seven-man crew) When they pulled it snapped the branch below me. Usually, I would notch the limb and pull it around so it wouldn't slap the wire. I watched the ground come up, I figured it was going to hurt a some but I was ready for it. The only surprise was how my legs collapsed; they didn't seem to slow me down a bit. The next day my foreman tried to prove I wasn't hurt by having me spray stobs while the rest of the crew sat in the truck. I went to their Doctor the next day.
If the top of the tree hadn't of broke up, the butt could have gone after the climber. That's from experience
Which is another reason I positioned myself behind the cut!
But there was no way the top wouldn't shatter - remember I've already done over half the tree by this time. Every single piece shattered.
True.
Arborist ropes are plenty strong. That rope probably would snap the tree in half before it broke.
That rope looks like it is giving birth, does that happen a bunch with arborist ropes.
It's where the winch cable connects to the alpine butterfly.
I'd be willing to bet that's a knot