Spurring a Paper Birch? Wow

[ChrisOTS]

So we picked up a new client the other day, and when we first got to his property this was the first thing I noticed.

I am still in shock over it. Most of the gaffs are compartmentalized, but not very well.

Just happy he educated himself on proper climbing, his trees are going to thank him down the road.

 

[Tr33Climb3r]

Yuck man. Educated clients are good clients.

 

[jomoco]

Looks like an abandoned removal to me!

Jomoco

 

[ChrisOTS]

There was a decent sized canopy up top, I wouldn't have taken that lateral on the left though.

 

[RopeShield]

Test pull and watch the top snap out..
Birch gets pretty punky.

Careful dude.

 

[Frax]

That is horrible.

Climbed a paper birch to the very top just yesterday to hand cut some small dead. I find healthy birch amazingly strong. I'll tie into something not much over 2 inches no problem. But dead birch is exactly the opposite. Scary and unpredictable. I distrust them completely when they are dead.

 

[ChrisOTS]

There was another birch on this guy's property, the homeowner asked if he could watch me climb, he had never actually seen climbing without spurrs before.

Now it had a lot of dead in it, fungi sprouting out of the top everywhere, I did a series of pull tests on that . There was only one tie in point in the tree left that I would trust.

I would have trusted everything that was left on gaffy mcscarscar here 100% more.

 

[treeness]

They're super flexible so they dissipate weight and movement on your TIP really well. Reminds me of elm, only more fun to climb and doesn't smell like funny when you cut into them. I've taken quite a few dead and rotten tops out of them recently. I don't get overly worried if the rot is in the beginning stages and there is still a tie in, as they still are a fairly strong tree, however like Nora, wouldn't go near a dead one with a 10ft pole. You can cut those ones down with a steel toe boot.