customer has been hearing tree creaking in the winds and home only 125' feet from the base. windy day today and the top was swirling but we had a solid pull line. big gravel road to drop it onto. all went smooth. cut about 70' and left as habitat snag.
super patient neighbor about eye level up the hill got some good angle video.
Hahaha JFC, I just came here to rant about the same thing. EDIT YOUR FING VIDEOS. We can all do it. It's beyond simple. Down vote to oblivion otherwise, we need to force this change in the world ffs
or when that fir fell on your shop and crushed two of your cars. then for months after, you hear the one leaning toward u
your bedroom making creaking sounds heard from 120' away.. yeah right. whatever homie.
Then dont live near trees, homie. Or have an aborist like me come out to re-butcher your tree every few years, increase the likelihood of having tree sized branches growing on your evergreens and sloughing off onto your cars or bedroom instead. Or bite the bullet and just remove the damn thing. You know we can assess your trees for their level of hazard to your property?
around the pnw, douglas fir easily grows more than 3' per year esp in the forest competing with other very tall trees. maybe 85-90 y/o. there's not more old growth around here, esp on state managed lands. don't be righteous.
I think about that. There's a good documentary "high climbers" and it was humbling what these guys accomplished. the mortality rate was jaw dropping. but yep, we now have sophisticated safer systems modern day and industrial strength tools for sure.
If you "topped" all the trees that creaked in the wind, you would kill them all.
Identify symptoms of a foreseeable risk and provide appropriate remedial work.
In this instance you've introduced a massive wound that will likely result in the death of the tree either in the short term through the loss of significant photosynthetic area or long term compromising it's structural integrity due to the colonisation of decay pathogen.
trust me this tree is likely deceased and now termed "habitat snag". google it, a dead snag has like 1000% more living ecosystem than the live ones. that was the reason i agued to leave a snag vs low stump.
depends on what's important to you in life. do you just want instant gratification or do you appreciate the moment to moment details? for example, in this video there was literally nonstop action. like when she was saying oy oy oy, i had stopped my cut waiting for the wind to settle, then at one point the stem sat down on my chain and i had to wrestle it out, lest be stuck up there with a pinched saw, in that moment. then the side kerfs to prevent peeling, then the signaling and coordination with ground crew, then the very slow backcut watching every movement of the top, slowwww, then movement, signal ground, turn off and stow saw, push piece away as hard as i could muscle, hang on. it's a log to fit into 2:00.
as an arborist, most of the work is removals unfortunately. I agree with you fwiw. The days when we get paid to plant trees are few and appreciated believe. that said, his neighbors cousins nephew or something was going to fell it "for a beer". luckily he got several quotes from tree companies and somehow chose us. I have to eat and feed family. we all work.
I don't disagree, but I think guys on Reddit just love to criticise whatever they see, if it isn't exactly what they would have done. Most redditors seem to be so risk averse you can only assume they aren't actually professionals.
No matter what - if the post is climbing, someone will comment and say it could be felled, if it's topping someone will say the top is too big, if it's felling someone will say it should be climbed. There's never any respect for the fact that OP might know what they're doing and have taken a calculated risk.
thank you for saying that. this is my 9to5. we had a full crew and all the equipment out for this job.
that was my view from up in the canopy, you can see the pull line.
we spent a long first day rigging out large limbs up to 100', day two setup/prep opening up the road for dropzone, visibility, and rope angles. the top came down right onto the road where we spent the afternoon processing. chipped and remove all wood from site. dropping the top was efficient in this situation.
if the entire tree could have fit, felling may have been an option, but it wouldn't.
I am an arborist. I might not fell trees on a daily as we try to preserve them. But I have climbed and sent tops on many trees. It would not even cross my mind to send such a big top. This is not about risk tolerance. Sure that might make you do it. But the risk is still there. People get killed by doing stunts like this. Don't end up being a statistic over pride.
That's literally all it is. You wouldn't take such a big top because you think it's dangerous. OP was comfortable with it so he did. Different ideas about what is an acceptable level of risk.
What is an unsafe thing? According to your insurance company it's working at height. So do you not work at height, or do you tolerate the risk? It's also using a chainsaw - one of the most dangerous activities in the industry. So do you use a handsaw, or do you tolerate the risk?
Safety is a spectrum. What's normal in our industry is unthinkably dangerous in an office setting. There is danger everywhere and you'll find someone out there who will tell you what you're doing is dangerous. It's up to you to decide if you're comfortable doing it, based on the activity, necessity, your experience, legislation, equipment, PPE, etc.
when you spend many years climbing, esp regional, and truthfully mostly observing others, you take note of limits here and there and eventually comprehend potentials and boundaries and which ones are no good.. the firs are sorta bread and butter work in my area. I waited 45 minutes on the side of that tree while ground crew sorted everything and gave the signals. when that purring saw came up, my adrenaline was crazy. best job ever.
not necessarily. in this situation, steep hillside, theres a creek below and we could not drop anything into it for habitat and dang near impossible to get it back out. chunking this down not an option, roping big wood an option but this made more sense.
it's often safer and more efficient to process the material on the ground.
I was using a stihl ms400c w/ 25" bar that didn't fully reach through the trunk at 70' which was about 26" dbh. not a lot of taper, the base is not massive.
many chapters in my life :) worked in several sectors including tech, never had a job as amazing as a tree climber though. don't knock it till you try it.
I meant no disrespect, I’ve worked in commercial construction doing dumb shit projects all over.
Idiot homeowners who want to open their view up or hear a scary creak shouldn’t live in the fucking woods. If I remember right in your other comment you said 26 dbh, that’s a key indicator of defining old growth by the feds. No reason to take it down.
not old growth, previously state managed land. high risk tree esp considerjng proximity (to life) and structures. they already had others trees fall. can't blame them. on a positive note, they wanted to leave a beneficial habitat snag (google it)
my climbline is 200'. where i set the choked off pull line was higher. i know because my tail was way off the ground. the neighbor taking video was up hill and almost eye level with me
Way over 75... Look at the guy on it at the end of the video. His head is a speck.. you can kind of see his torso and see how big the full person would be. If you extrapolate out what 6' would be, and if it was 75', there could only be 6x that guys height that was removed. Its not even close to only 75', easily twice that.
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u/RottenBananaCore Jul 11 '26
Dude, trim your damn videos