What started out as a prospective timber tree.....

......turned out to be a bummer, somewhat. blacksmith and I did a few walnut trees on Sunday (one was a DANDY) at a local 1750s stone tavern.

I estimated the biggest one, a double trunked walnut, to be between 130-150 years old, the base was over 4' across. We had visions of stacks of beautiful boards from that base and the two leader logs, but it turned out to be TOTALLY HOLLOW!

The old Tavern....



The trees we were taking down. The big one is off in the distance, towards the center of the pic.


It's hard to tell from the pictures, but that monster was grown into a rockslide that occurred many, many decades ago.


We topped this walnut tree and rigged it with two guy ropes, and used it for a skyline to skid logs from the big tree out to the parking lot.


blacksmith getting ready to top out the skyline tree


Dropping some big chunks


Pic of the two guy lines set (they were rigged at the bases of two bigger maple trees up on the bank. The cable is also being set in this pic, using a snatch block and heavy lifting sling/clevis


In this pic I was ascending the front leader on the big walnut tree, you can zoom in and just make out the skyline tree to the middle/left.

 

We removed as many of the rocks at the base of the tree as we could, hoping to salvage as much wood at the base as we could possibly get, expecting to have some saw lumber in that base....those rocks have been against that base for many many years, they were grown into the outer edge of the trunk.


Pic of me at the base of the tree before ascending it. The limestone rocks were piled up past my waist, so we did move a lot of rocks in hopes of salvaging that base log.


It was time to get down to business and start taking that tree apart


Dropping the first of 4 tops

Getting ready to take the 2nd top

Making a face notch on a 20" top almost 55' off the ground (using a Stihl 026) can be a challenge....


Bombs away!

 

While ascending that first leader to top it out, I discovered that the trunk was indeed hollow. After dropping the tops, however, we knew it was solid from about 2/3 the way up to the top, so we still had some hope for a few good mill logs

A pic of the first leader after we dropped it from above the 12' crotch.

Looking down from my vantage point after the first leader came down. 12' above grade


She's totally hollow, it was heartbreaking to see that magnificent tree hollow like that......

Another view of the first leader. We had to use the skidsteer to assist, the log was so big and the underbrush was so thick that we couldn't get enough traction to pull the skyline.



After.ascending the second leader and determining it was even more hollow than the first, we had to reassess how I was going to take the tops out. Had the log been solid, I was going to pull the tops backwards and into the whole we were working in at the base of the bank. But the leader being hollow and in poor condition, I decided to drop the tops straight out. This required that a small sugar maple be removed that was directly below AND intertwined with the tops of the walnut tree that I was removing. So Joe had to take the tree down while I looked on from above. Got a few good pics and a really cool video.....


With the sugar maple.down and out of the way,it was time to finish topping...


Flopping the tops out of leader #2....


TIMBER!!!

 

The second leader is down, and you can clearly see the severity of how hollow it was.




The property owner still got a nice load of saw logs from the job. So it wasn't a total loss. But it was a shame to see that massive trunk basically unusable for lumber......

 

Wow! Amazing thread Scotty

 

The property owner had some good ideas for the hollow logs. I hope he can use them.

 

It was far enough away that it wouldn't have posed a problem for the Tavern, but the sand mound might have been in trouble....

 

It was still in very stable condition for its age. I was amazed that neither trunk had any wind splitting or cracking whatsoever. It was on the backside of a steep bank, it was protected from the harsh winds.

 

Hey, I like doing these posts for my firewood family, whenever I have the time to write them!

 

Nice documentation on this one Scotty and nice work from both of you. What a shame to find that tree hollow, but certainly not unheard of. I've seen many hollow or rotten walnuts over the years. Do you suppose all the stone around the base had something to do with all the rot? Especially right at the base.