On Monday I finished up a two canopy property line half-crown reduction project, after having bailed out from the windy leading edge of a hilltop rain and lightning storm on my previous visit. It was back yard 70' mewp work, if you had a 70' mewp. The trunks both lie on the lot of the east neighbor.
The hook was amazing. I set an srt line fairly high in a hot mess laurel oak with crown dieback, deadwooded the interior on my climb up to the tip. I noticed that one low branch was over-extended to a natural lion tail, and I could not limbwalk to make an appropriate reduction cut, so I planned my route around it. I used the hook to ascend 5' past my TIP into dead/dying 4" wood, and establish a temporary sling TIP for my climbing line. I went out sideways 7' into the adjacent leader to 2" wood to reduce 1/3 and remove top and bottom dieback, but the top was too exposed to climb into. I uppercut my hook into it from the underside, cut the branch off while keeping the hook under tension, transferred it on my lowering line, and removed the hook. Removed the bottom dead wood by cutnchuck, then went back to my original hook tip and popped out the 4" dead top. I chucked the hook across 20'/down 5', re-established and descended back onto my original climbing line TIP, traversed, ascended up to the hook, climbed vertically past it with lanyard to make 2 (50%) dieback/mistletoe/reduction cuts in 2" wood, then backed down onto it and went out for a long upper canopy walk, supported by a horizontal tip and the hook ~10' above me and at a 40° angle to my climbing line. 15' out I reduced and ziplined out a crossed up interior branch at 2", then made a 1/3 reduction cut in 2" wood about 25' out. I redirected my climbing line in 3" wood, then shook the hook out and used it to yank off a 1" dead limb. I bailed off onto the climbing line redirect, in position to reduce the single-leader over-extended low branch to 50% at 2.5" wood, then came to ground.
The only things I did *not* use the hook for were ziplining and as sole climbing support. For any folks unaware, the hook is explicitly rated against primary life support, and ziplines are supposed to utilize an enclosed pulley or locking biner.
I loaded the 3 grapplefulls of brush onto my trailer, then went to talk and wrap things up with the homeowner. As usual, the trees still looked like trees when I was finished (damnably similar to the original trees...) and the $900 bill dictated that large lower-limb lion-taiĺing cuts be made to keep up with the Joneses immediately to the south - like, their name may have actually been Lion-tail Jones. I pointed out all the cuts which, from the ground, look tiny... Re-explain wind, levers, and forces, and remind him that my small piles were actually quite manly and massive in terms of force allieviation. Poor guy got high-end care and is still unsure of it, but I give him props for trusting me a bit.
That hook, though, was on fleek.
