Would you climb these dead trees?

climbingmonkey24

climbingmonkey24

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
United States
Removal of the 4 spars without any branches on them.

My thought was to tie into the healthier one when working the real dead and hazardous one, and do the same with the other two or tie into one of the spars that was topped but still has some lower branches.

There’s room to just cut and drop pieces so no rigging.

Thoughts?
 
The other consideration I was having is even if you were to tie in to the stronger trees, those in itself aren’t in the greatest condition so what’s to say it would withstand the force if worst case the other tree failed and a climber was ti swing down and be dependent on that other one for life support…

More so just talking out loud here…

Obviously every climber / owner has a different threshold for where they draw the line when it comes to what they’re willing to climb or have one of their climbers climb, etc.
 
Something to think about, those trees have been dead a long time. The owners had plenty of time to deal with them before they became dangerous and you have no obligation to risk your life now to try and save them money. Get a lift in there or a crane or whatever it takes to do it safely. If homeowner objects to cost let them get someone else to do it.
 
If you're going to pull test anything, pull it towards a clear felling zone where failing the pull test won't cause catastrophic damage. If you have such a zone just drop the spar into it and dispense with pull testing.

I did a cork-and-shell spar once where I tied to a live tree beside it but put no tension on my climb line, spurred the dead spar and chunked it down. I was willing to swing into the spar rather than ride to the ground, When I went to fell the spar stub there was the thinnest of sound shell and not even close to anything to support wedging! climb stealthy smooth like a ninja!
 
chiselbit said:
Something to think about, those trees have been dead a long time. The owners had plenty of time to deal with them before they became dangerous and you have no obligation to risk your life now to try and save them money. Get a lift in there or a crane or whatever it takes to do it safely. If homeowner objects to cost let them get someone else to do it.
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1000%. This is completely their problem, not something you should put yourself at risk for to save them a buck. If they complain about the price, walk away.
 
Bart_ said:
If you're going to pull test anything, pull it towards a clear felling zone where failing the pull test won't cause catastrophic damage. If you have such a zone just drop the spar into it and dispense with pull testing.

I did a cork-and-shell spar once where I tied to a live tree beside it but put no tension on my climb line, spurred the dead spar and chunked it down. I was willing to swing into the spar rather than ride to the ground, When I went to fell the spar stub there was the thinnest of sound shell and not even close to anything to support wedging! climb stealthy smooth like a ninja!
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Ended up doing them today. The climber tied into the nearby one when working the real hazard one, and then just climbed the others normal. We cut manageable pieces and pulled them over with a rope and chucked some small pieces. It went well, and actually some of the wood on the inside was still somewhat solid, although there was still plenty of rot and decay at the base and other areas, and some of the stumps were loaded with ants.

I talked with the customer the day before basically saying that if once we started if we encountered anything that we thought might make it unsafe we may have to call it off. Either to regroup and come up with a new plan or walk away altogether. He was in complete agreement and understood, and this made me feel better about it.

If they were healthier might’ve been able to fell some of them if not all, but even then I’d probably still want to piece them out because some of them had a lean and nearby obstacles. And in this case with the rot / decay near the base I’d be worried about the hinge holding and being able to fell it accurately.

Thanks for the input though!


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Good... but still playing with life and dearh.. solid wood in the top doesn't matter much if the roots are shot... it was risky..
You could say that about jumping into the car to go get a gallon of milk... except this is different
 
climbingmonkey24 said:
I’d probably still want to piece them out because some of them had a lean and nearby obstacles.
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Really glad it worked out.

I would look at what others have said about the customer dragging feet in getting this taken care of- and say that the fence might just have to get destroyed. That’s their problem. Glad it worked out but I agree. Like Daniel said, the wood may have been solid but I’m sure the spars would have popped out of the ground like a loose tooth with those roots being completely rotten away.

These remind me of one that I looked at a year ago in the playground of really nice school. There was a very ornate little hut made of stones and cob that was directly under a dead leaning maple spar about 40 feet tall. But it was a spar because of some climber at some point cut off all the limbs, and for whatever reason they didn’t take the spar all the way down. So I told him they should reach out to whoever did that work since they were the ones who created that problem. That’s the same with the ones that you have there. Who climbed that and left those spars that high? I know none of you would do that. it’s totally reckless and they’re the ones who should be fixing this problem and risking their lives.
 
I probably would have climbed those. Like said about the roots, my mind would be focused on any wobbling of the spar the whole time. As long as my spurs could reach solid wood, and the tree remained relatively still, take it out one chunk at a time. With no spar movement, and a tag line, I'd opt to pull over 3-4 good sized chunks. The weight reduction is soothing.....as long as there is little to no spar movement. With a bit of wobble, I'd opt for the smaller chunks and free falling. Just one smooth cut and slide it off.

If it was wobbly and my gut instinct said no way, a lift rental, or crane, would be the way to go.

Seems like my spurs are attracted to rotten trees. I've been in so many. Don't get me wrong, I've declined on some.
 
The back story with this is I guess someone else had started the trees a few years ago and never came back to finish.

We did remove two fence panels closest to the one tree that I thought was the most hazardous just to have a little more room to work with.

The lift or crane would’ve been ideal. I guess they did get some quotes from someone who had a crane long enough to reach or a lift small enough to get back there. I did consider the lift option.

I wasn’t the one climbing, but I asked the climber throughout how did it feel and he said it felt okay, some movement but that could also be due to the fact that there were no branches, etc. Nothing that made him or me second guess what we were doing. And we took it at a controlled pace, kept in mind the climber’s movement with the spikes, etc.

@southsoundtree I believe they were white pine. Honestly I don’t feel it was too close of a call. We had done a lot of planning and discussing about it, I talked to the homeowner explaining that if anything didn’t feel right we may have to call it, so I felt confident that while there was risk we had taken some steps to try and mitigate the risk. Had that second spar not been near the one that I thought was the most hazardous, I might’ve turned it down or considered another option.

Taking on trees like this hasn’t necessarily been the norm for me. I generally will turn something down if I think it really is the right call, whatever the reason might be.
 
To build off what I said above, I wouldn’t define it as a close call in the sense that we didn’t really encounter anything that we weren’t already expecting and as prepared for as we could be, or have any moments that made us seriously question if we should proceed.

But even so, I think having a healthy respect for these kinds of jobs or any job for that matter is important, and not letting ego or being ambitious get in the way of good judgement and conscious reasoning. Also knowing when to tune in to your intuition as has already been mentioned.
 
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