Big tree collapse climber

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Bucknut said:
Agree. Hence the extreme stem wobble seen with healthy trees being aggressively topped.

I think he got very lucky. His lanyard must have slipped up and over the remaining stem as it went over. Good thing there wasn't a stub.

Or maybe he was tied into two trees. Didn't swing much. I've always wondered where the failure point would be if the tree you're bucked into failed while you were tied into another solid tree. Bridge? Pelvis? Bad news either way.

And what was that log swinging at his level and to the right?
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He didn't use a lanyard, was hanging off a high line. I think that chunk of wood was hung on his high line.
 
rico said:
It looks to be a small piece of shrapnel (from large tree) that got hung up in the canopy during the exploding carnage?
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Looks that way to me, as well.





Looks to me that he was banging that over top over with a hatchet/ ax in his right hand, chainsaw already dangling. Is that what you all see?
 
southsoundtree said:
Looks that way to me, as well.





Looks to me that he was banging that over top over with a hatchet/ ax in his right hand, chainsaw already dangling. Is that what you all see?
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Yep. After mutiple views I think we’re starting to figure out what he was doing up there. Whatever he was up to, that boy is bat shit crazy. I’m trying to figure out if he is really good or just nuts. Maybe both?
 
Definitely no lanyard involved. What at first looks like one was the kerf. Could it have been a wedge he was using to drive the top over?

I'll second Rico's assessment of batshit crazy with a measure of skill. He knew enough that he needed to be tied in and suspended apart from that mess. There's a few what ifs I doubt he considered, like the tail getting snagged or even a portion of the top coming back.

A controlled blast and that tree would've crumbled straight down into a heap. I wonder why he was even up there as it looks like there was room to drop it.
 
rico said:
I am truly honored that you believe I possess the balls to attempt something that insane chiselbit, but sadly I don't. The climber was clearly ready for something very bad to happen, but I don't think he was prepared for the complete and catastrophic failure of the entire tree. Mad props to the fella, but as mentioned his climbing line could have very easily got him killed. I myself would have called an old-timer I know and had him blast that f***cker into a nice, neat pile of rumble.
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Thats exactly what I thought too. Bang! But it did sound like you and your cameraman and I wouldn’t doubt your ability and willingness to do it like they did so I had to ask.
 
treehumper said:
A controlled blast and that tree would've crumbled straight down into a heap. I wonder why he was even up there as it looks like there was room to drop it.
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There must've been some unseen hazard or target. Maybe wires or a fence. To take the time to set up a highline or to tie into two separate trees, he must've had something to worry about. Or maybe the base was just too rotten to trust with the hinge.

( Sidenote: why do we all seem to risk our lives routinely for cheap, replacable fences?). I need to get better about seeing perceived obstacles for what they sometimes are: movable.
 
Yup a fence is always a movable item or even one that doesn't really matter. More than a few times have I been told, sometimes after the fact, that they didn't really care about the fence or were going to replace it.
Even wires, such as service drops to houses can be taken down temporarily. But now we're talking about safe work practices....:aburrido:
 
Last summer we had a long standing dead pine. Pretty punky at the base and the whole spar was full of wood pecker holes. My partner wanted to climb it. I said no way .... your asking for it. Tree was on top of a ravine and about 10' away from a garage/barn. HO had just bought the property. He listened to me and we managed to get a rope around the spar through all the vines about 2/3 the way up using his big shot. Walked the rope down the ravine with 2 guys on it with a bit of mechanical advantage. I made a face cut and looked at the mush I cut through. 4-5'' deep. I got on the back cut and popped in 2 wedges to the left and right of center on the back cut. Cut and tap ....repeat. Moisture oozing out from the wedges compressing the mush. I hear them down the ravine yelling at me to hurry up .... they were tiring quick trying to pull it over. The lean was not in my favor but it wasn't drastic. It was trying to squeeze the wedges back out. I yell out "PUULLLL!" and got on the throttle. It went into the ravine as it broke into pieces striking nearby limbs on the way down. It was a nerving job for sure.
Maybe the tree's base in the vid was the same condition? It was definitely about twice as tall as my experience with our rotten white pine.
 
chiselbit said:
Thats exactly what I thought too. Bang! But it did sound like you and your cameraman and I wouldn’t doubt your ability and willingness to do it like they did so I had to ask.
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There was an awful lot of profanity so I could see how you thought it might be me.
Im starting to think that they had a pretty good idea what was gonna happen (besides the climbing line) and were there to film it as a sort of "jackass" moment. I would really like to hear from this lunatic.
 
The video seems to be that he was wearing a polebelt and released it when the spar moved - you see his hand go to his hip and release something.

I have done similar with a sketchy dead pine. Only had a 7 foot drop zone around base so was tip tying large limbs and spearing em down to land in the tight drop zone and trimming em into blocks as they were lowered. Had one large branch that the angle was off and knew if something went wrong would come back at me. So had a higher tip and put the positioning lanyard between my teeth to hold position for the cut. Lo and behold, a defect in the limb had it snap into two pieces. The lower piece dropped into the zone below and the upper piece (about 300kg) came swinging on the line at me. I dropped the lanyard from my teeth and kicked off the tree, and then kicked off the limb as it came at me after bouncing off the trunk. No injuries or bruises.

If I had the lanyard clipped in there was no way I could guarantee unclipping to get out of the way and probably would have been crushed. I was expecting a bad swing from the entire branch - the snapped limb was a rapid surprise but the precaution kept me uninjured.
 
Looks like tied in to two trees. You can see him swing away from the camera after the trunk collapses. I see no signs or movements that indicate a lanyard was involved. He's lucky the trunk didn't catch on his climbing rope.
 
Love this vid, its been making the rounds for a while now. He's a young guy from Vancouver Island with a CUA ticket I believe. There must have been some high voltage lines on the backside that we cant see in the video or something. As nutso as it is, I think his gameplan was really well thought out.
 
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