I've been wanting this tree down for years. I finally felt like I had the experience and equipment to do it, so yesterday I rigged it up with two pow'r pullers, a big chain 90° to the fall, and a long, long line to my truck. Thought about it all day yesterday, and stuck to my guns on sleeping on it although I almost just went after it. Woke up today, and it felt right, so I took it. While this tree had a big bow right towards the garage, 90° to the fall it actually looked straight, so I figured if I could get it going the right way I could land it. Put some tension in the direction of fall with my truck, snugged up the preventer chains on the uphill side, and got the 044 out. I did a bit of wedge hinge, with more meat on the uphill side. I left enough that the tree was still stable, then headed over to the rope puller. Put a few cranks on that. Walked near the tree, heard a creak or two. Went back to the truck, put a little more tension on that one. Back to the puller....crank, crank, crank. Stopped. Heard some more creaks. Waited a minute. Crank, crank........Here she comes!! Right where I hoped. I can't tell you guys how relieved I am. May not have been the smartest to tackle this one on my own, but I can't let the pros have all the fun! I'm so happy it's on the ground!! In this shot it's the one to looker's right, you can't see the bow well from here, it's coming right towards us... This one shows how all the branches are on the downhill side, and some of the bow/lean towards the garage... Here's a crappy shot of the rigging, if you look closely you can see the preventer chain on the uphill side. I added another line to my truck this morning, just uphill from the white pow'r puller line there in the foreground...
Congratulations, your experience and your gut feeling paid off. How tall do you figure it was? and what was it?
It's a Doug Fir. Maybe 80'? I don't really know, I'm not good at that. That's a 28" bar on the 044, and it just about buried all of it.
Can definitely see that bow and that was a hazard waiting to happen. Well done! Glad you are safe. That took a lot of bottle.
Good work. Can you better describe the rigging you used? Diameters, tensile strengths and whatnot? Thanks.
Nice job NW. I always feel better when they're at 45 degrees, on their way down, where I wanted em'... how bout you...
I always feel so much better when trees like that are on the ground and I am still in one piece! Bet you're glad that's done!
Thanks everybody. I feel a whole lot better with it laying on the ground for sure. The chain going uphill was 3/8", with a 2 ton cable power puller for tension. When I saw that I could sorta bend the tree uphill with that rig, I felt a lot a better about picking up the saw. The lines going out for pulling were just 1/2" dacron line that came with the rope puller. Like this.
