All went as planned. Except the photographer. Grrrr. My daughter couldn't get a camera and my BB pics were mysteriously deleted. I'm waiting on the contractor to send me his pics and vids.
Used up a 600' reel of 1/2" stable braid; approx. 300' for the highline, 200' for the one lowering/haulback line, 100' for the tensioning 5:1 MA. That piece was tied on toe the 200 for needed additional length we needed to get the pieces to the drop zone and dettached(in hindsight I wouldn't have cut that piece off). Another 200' control/lowering line was used from existing ropes.
The site was sloping down into the ravine. The highline was tied at the base then run through a large catalpa at the back of the house (2' from the house) down to the Elm to be removed where it was redirected through a high union to a Sugar maple about 100' downhill at the dropzone. From there it was tensioned using the 5:1 and then anchored to the base of an Ash with a 8 coil Prusik and backed up by tying off around the Ash. At the end of the day we could easily detension the system and leave it in place for the following day.
Two blocks and two steel side-by-side double (s/s 2x) pulleys were used. One CMI 4" block used as the trolley pulley (Vermeer and Universal Forestry didn't have any of the actual trolley pulleys in stock) from which I hung a s/s 2x pulley. I used a couple of steel rigging biners to orient the pulley inline with the highline. Through the 2x I ran the two 200' lines in opposite directions(control line clockwise, the haulback counterclockwise). The haulback ran through a springlock alum. block set just below the union the highline ran through. This was then managed by a groundsmen at the base of the Elm with a large porta-wrap. The control line ran through the remaining s/s 2x pulley used as a redirect attached to another Elm. This was handled by a 3-man crew consisting of the 2 draggers and a chainsaw operator.
