Let's Tackle a Dead'un

Frax

Frax

Participating member
Location
Expat now in Chapel Hill, NC by way of Calgary, Al
Dead trees. First off don't climb them if you have other options.
But we all need to climb one sooner or later. I've done my share of them, and I have a little list of things I test for. I know the big dawgs here can add a lot more. Let's start.

1. Know the species and know why the tree died if you can, and for how long the tree has been dead.

2. Check the root zone carefully, especially if you don't know why the tree died.

3. Pull test maybe.

4. On long dead trees, try to pull off limbs with throwline /rope from a distance. Me, being overly cautious imagine large limbs becoming dislodged and riding my rope onto my head. Hasn't happened yet, but it's the thing that bothers me most.

5. Always spike the tree, even if you don't have to. You get so much extra information from that.

6. If you have to rig, obviously as small as you can and find an expert roper. Take the smallest top by climbing as high as you dare on sound wood. I add one or more vertical redirects above my main tie which is cinched around the strongest point I can find at height so I can get up there safely. If something breaks, at least I'll only fall a few feet. That's only to cover the unseen hazard. If you think the top is very possibly to weak to hold you, you should abandon the mission.

What else do you guys do?

The images are from last week's pine. Just the limbs and small top taken off. The stem was felled.
b42db85ab4737b3613d2eddd77481ce5.jpg
f0641e41f55fc3e99683c53c669cf3f3.jpg


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
Don't use a high TIP if you might have branches ride down your rope.

Self-lower your tops, which should be small enough to natural crotch on your own. Why coordinate with an expert roper on the ground when you can be the expert roper, with first-hand, realtime info.

Pete Donzelli (sp), RIP, died in part from the rope being locked off, and at a poor rope angle, IIRC.

Take a battery-powered drill and long 1/4 inch bit for sampling along the way.

Peel limbs onto the rigging.

Add extra rope into your rigging system for shock absorption. Use Yates Screamers at the rigging anchor point.

Tell everyone on the ground to shut-up, its A-game time. Customer away from the work zone.

Clearly tell the roper that the fence doesn't matter. The pool doesn't matter, the house doesn't matter compared to the life of the climber..."but, I was worried about ______." Take the roper off the hook for damage IN ADVANCE. Make the boss climb it or rope it.



Roots rot on the underside first, typically. Make sure testing accounts for this.

Contract it out to someone with a spider-lift or bucket.
 
Judicious use of.a pole saw to remove as many limbs as possible. I did a live pine on Monday that had a very small drop zone and got all the branches off with the pole. On another note, when is THE Charlotte?
 
Pete Donzelli (sp), RIP, died in part from the rope being locked off, and at a poor rope angle, IIRC

I miss Pete

The top was butt hitched. The rope spiraled around the trunk. The ground crew was supposed to let it fly. They locked it off. The trunk broke below Pete
 
Steve Connally said:
TreeMek. All of the above and pick up heads up pennies.
Click to expand...

I've actually been wondering about this, on a brittle tree, can the treemek grab limbs without crushing them in half? I've dealt with dead 6" diameter pin oak limbs breaking in half when they hit the trunk, even with an overhead rigging point.
Just curious, btw I think the treemek is cool, if we were in the same area I would hire you just to see it in action. Just didn't want it to sound like I was against the machine. It just seems like the amount of pressure needed to hold larger wood would be bad for brittle wood.
 
In my picture, my rigging point and tie in were right about where my head is in that shot. I set two redirects up higher and took a really small top up to where that 90 degree branch is sticking out to the left. Chip roped it. I could have taken a much bigger top, but I chose not to.
I don't know how much damping effect you get on a dead tree, but I left the lower limbs on that were opposite the drop side.
I don't work for a gitterdun outfit anyway, so I can over-engineer the safety factor if I want.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Frax said:
How did that crucial instruction get missed?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

All of us have asked that question for years. My understanding is that pete told the groundies but they didn't understand how critical it was to really...let it run.

After loosing pete from a misunderstood plan has made me more than a little nutzo when I work with a new crew.

If we can't find agreement about the names of our climbing systems it's going to take a lot of work communicating 'let it run'.
 
I think August hunickie suggested it in one of his videos, but slice/slash cut the top too minimize lateral forces as the top comes free

The obvious use another tree as a tie in, even if the rope angle is poor, something as a back up is always better than nothing. Floating anchors spanned between adjacent trees will help get a better angle

Kind of cruel, but smaller lighter guys put less forces on the tree than bigger folks. Same goes for more experienced climbers that don't shake and bounce as much as they move around. This also applies to people who climb frequently vs people who are capable corners but spend most of their time in a bucket

Lastly it's ALWAYS ok to pass on doing it
 
  1. Worst of the bunch wait for freeze up
  2. Pole saw weighted side and leave the opposite side as ballast
  3. Tie backs
  4. Bag your line so nothing free fallin can catch it
  5. Make your cut and get down and away for pulling tops out
 
If at all possible have your primary Tip be in a live tree near by.

Use an uncontrolled slide line attached to a neighboring tree if there is a need for rigging and it's possible. Dead stuff will often crumble apart, but the slide line will often direct the mess away from targets directly below.

Be systematic in the order of branch removal. In other words, try to keep the tree as balanced as possible.

Have less wraps on the lowering device.

If the bark is pealing off look for horizontal cracks.

Keep your chest closer to the trunk and focus on not rocking the tree.

Use temporary guy lines.
 
Frax,
Hello from Cowtown.
In a couple of dicey trees where there’s been no other options, what I’ve done these last couple years, on not only dead trees but some live ones that have had Snowtember storm cracks was:
1) on conifers, salami cut the tops where possible, to get them down without inducing any bending moment in the stem,
2) used my little Oregon electric pole saw to great effect in limbing above what my guardian angel tells me is the safe to climb height, one branch from one side, then another branch from the other side, trying to get the weight of the top down as much as possible,
3) I’ve usually tried to avoid peeling branches but just cut them clean so they drop straight down (straight thru with T540 not an electric saw or hand) - again no bending moment for the stem,
4) BIG exclusion zone when cutting dead stuff - have had some branches literally explode (and I do mean explode) when they hit the dirt (most curious, but really impressive, probably at least 5.9 from the Russian judge),
5) climbing some multiple stemmed conifers, I will usually rope up the stems together - sometimes, in a couple of places on the way up,
6) have tried an experimental splinting/ binding of a conifer stem but backed off ‘cause I wasn’t that brave in the end anyway - didn’t work in our case,
7) I will most likely take a hit for this and Nick won’t like it, but I did build up a “special case” running belay setup with way overrated rigging runner loops up the stem/ steel biners, a long dynamic rope and dynamic belay (in addition to my lanyards and usual tree gear) and a tie-in to harness with a prussik and zipper slings. Realize, this is way, way outside the tree climbing paradigm but it somehow made me feel safer (NO other way to take these trees down and they were menacing little old ladies below). Same as ice climbing where the anchors aren’t engineered either and part of the thing may come down with you. But this one is not my favourite bag of gear to take out and use.
8) as others have said - tie into another tree - even a side whipper/ pendulum is better than hitting the deck and just once, we tried to set up a dynamic belay/ munter, opposite the direction you’d pendulum to - never got to try it out thankfully but it was an attempt to try and slow a swing down as much as we could.
My 2 highly devalued Canuck cents.
Anyway you do dead stuff, I find it scary.
Cheers
Appreciate any feedback around these points.
(I like the debarking comment above, so you don’t kick out - have to try it)

Addenda after some more thought:
Another thing I'd say we should have done is way more discussion about rescue before starting - no way 2nd climber is going into these trees - so the plan is . . . ? Better to sort it out before bad things happen. These things were special cases and everyone needs to be aware of this before committing to the climb.
 
Last edited:
Hi ghostice. I'm from Cowtown too. I don't know whether you saw that. I've been in NC for 6 years now, but I spent 7 years arboring in Calgary.
The worst dead trees I climbed were there. Twice, climbed dead trees and discovered at the end the cause was stem girdling roots. Those things should never be climbed. I've seen several popped right off their roots, alive or dead.
Here, most trees have planted themselves at least.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Kask Stihl NORTHEASTERN Arborists Wesspur TreeStuff.com Teufelberger Westminster X-Rigging Teufelberger
Back
Top Bottom