Girdling "cables" and climbing safety

[Jehinten]

Just curious on the thoughts of climbing above where this tree was cabled (chained) years ago. I have seen trees fail in the past when growing into the top rail of a chain link fence, would this lead growing into this log chain be an opportunity for failure? The tree is a Bradford pear and will be removed. The lead on the backside of this chain has grown completely around the chain.

My initial thoughts are that it's safe, especially since there is not damage to each of the leaders that the chain encompasses but but I wanted to be sure before sending a climber up into it. The blue arrow shows the location of the log chain.

There is a second Bradford pear next to it that could be tied into, and a maple tree about 30 feet away in the neighbor's backyard.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

How trees grow around chain was discussed on an obsoleted forum many years ago..re-Treebuzz...Doug Meller??? hosted. So much great dialog lost.

What I've found when I've taken wood like in your tree or where trees grew into chain link fence. Not the top rail...through the fabric.sss

Cutting and dissecting pieces showed me that most of the time there was little or no decayed wood. Th cambium was not cut. Its flowed around the contact points.not cut like cable

 

[Chaplain242]

Haven’t come across too many embedded cables or chains, but have had to remove plenty of tyres who’s beads were embedded into growing cambium layer etc sometimes by inches. There was no infection or even dead tissue in most cases, but the wood was often dense like you see in branch unions.