I got a message from another highly respected climber and a true innovator in the industry, calling this an example of "pure laziness", continuing, that there was plenty of room in the drop zone, everything could have been bombed, and therefore without needing to rig, the fact that it was a compromised tree is insignificant. Concluding that unless there isn't a climber on the crew the lift was unnecessary..
Interesting perspective...........
I replied as follows: Pure laziness is one of my specialties
While that's actually true and one of my proudest achievements (LOL) the subject of laziness is a bit off topic... so let's save that for another thread and address his points...
When Bix was narrating: talking about one of the nice things about using the lift is that "you don't have to climb those compromised trees", I AM pretty sure he was making a general statement about the lift, and not so much about this tree.. The old wound on this tree may have looked bad to the lay person, but on this individual and species, it didn't have much of a compromising effect. Hardly any decay in that wound. I would have lowered that whole top if needed without worrying about the tree failing.. So on this tree safer cutting from the lift may not have been an issue, but there are plenty more bad trees that do create a safety issue. The lift just takes one safety concern out of the calculations. And that can be huge, when the safety concern is "if I make this cut will I die here?", and the answer is often unclear as the variable of the tree's structural stability is an unknown....
I've taken hug tops out of trees from the bucket with no room to let it run and watched those tops springboard back and forth in a way you would NEVER want to ride in the hooks..... That's a lot of fun to watch creating a feeling of happiness from the thought, "Thank God I don't have to take those nasty rides anymore"..
Our critic's other point that the tree could have been bombed out without lowering by a climber because there was a wide open drop zone warrants some discussion as well... While the lift itself did create an obstacle to work around, there was an entire lead growing over the conifers that was not filmed .. The last cuts of that lead can be seen in the first two cut shown on the video, right around 5:00
That lead would have been a very difficult, near impossible to bomb, without lowering, if you were on rope and saddle... Just reaching the branch tips, needed to cut small enough pieces to thread through the lower canopy would have been very difficult. More importantly, the bucket provides a stability and work positioning relative to the cut, making it a lot easier to cut and chuck or throw a piece as it falls.... No climber would have bombed that lead, it would have been much faster and easier to rig out in big pieces...
I think that tree took me just over an hour to bomb out to the spar, and it would have been faster if I had some experience with the controls on the lift... I've seen a lot of fast climbers and our critic is one of them. I've seen him make quick work of monster trees in person, but there is no way any climber would have had this tree down faster.
I think its an interesting topic.. what do you think???
