Watch your rigging fork!

[dandandatreeman]

My boss was cutting a water oak down today. The top of it was in bad shape with rot and junk. There are service lines, a six foot fence, and a busy road there. I was roping for him. He cut the end of a limb off and went down it about 15 feet and put the rigging line in a fork there 15 to 20 feet from the base. Then we roped out a few blocks. The last block was the largest one that he put on. He cut the block off and the whole limb that we were rigging on peeled off at the base! The limb that we were rigging off of almost hit him too! After all was on the ground we saw that the whole top of the of the fork was rottin. The bottom of it was still ok looking.

My boss is a 28 year vet, and I say he is a damn good arborist. He said that he never thought that fork would have broke out like it did. Keep your eyes peeled because the thing that will get ya you really won't see.

 

[goodaking]

I here you. Watch your rigging and make sure you do a good tree inspection. I was doing a large willow removal a couple of weeks ago when I ran into a scary situation. I tip tied a large leader (20 in diameter) that I was just going to snap cut from the ground. I could not figure out why the leader would not snap off. I yanked and yanked on the tip tied rope and it still would not snap off. I said to myself this defies physics. I thought to myself could there be a cable up there? Walk around twice and I did not see a cable. I walked around a third time and there it was. That’s when I was like #&*! I now have to go up this tree and put myself in a bad situation to cut that cable free. Everything work out ok but it just goes to show you that there can be hidden things that could turn your day into a nightmare.

 

[dylanclimbs]

Yup...this'll happen. One has to be smarter than the tree and the rigging, which is much easier said than done. I was using a chainsaw winch to lift brush through a redirect in a poplar top once, and the top peeled out to the next union. Bad me, should have seen it coming.