You will have 2 very nice saws when you are done with them. I'm sure one of these days I will end up with a 200t, but for now the Echo will do.
Not sure how I missed out on the conversation here this week, never got any alerts Anyhow got to test out my new hitch climber set up today. First impression it makes climbing up easy, it’s fairly compact and keeps everything inline. Slack tending is easy also. When you send the line through your main saddle connection and set it up as a floating rig you can lay back and walk right up the tree by pulling on the line. As far as coming down and work positioning the VT, which was the knot of choice was super smooth and took very little effort to release. It also holds very well and stops instantly when I let my fingers off. That all being said I had trouble with knot collapsing and hanging into the caribener when taking the slack up and also not wanting to bite back onto the line with out dressing it by hand which defeats the whole purpose. Another little thing which I think is just something I need to get used to is the DMM biners push and turn to open the gate. I’m used to the RockO ones that pull and turn just a personal preference I guess. All in all I like it and think I may try a different type of eye and eye instead of the 8mm Ocean. With a little more tinkering I think it will be pretty sweet
Had a pretty good time doing some work on some dead beech trees for a member here whom I consider my brother. Maybe DexterDay will chime in here with his thoughts and some pics from the weekend of work. The worst of the bunch was this 24"+ dead beech that stood about 15' from their family cabin. Hazard to say the least. I had a chance to climb with the zigzag and let's just say I'm in love! It's rock solid and silky smooth! Scotty Overkill I will most certainly have this at Backwoods Savage this spring if you'd like to take a hands on look at it. Yes that is a fair bit of punky wood on the spar. Also notice the presence fungi. Both big red flags when you're doing your pre climb assessment. I had planned on speed lining all the branches safely away from the cabin and chunking down the spar. I felt that was the less hazardous rout to take. As far as this nasty piece of work is concerned I wasn't able to complete the trim as I planned because I could barely get any spur penetration in the upper branches. Very hard and frozen. I've never climbed frozen dead beech and after gaffing out a couple times, I don't ever care to again. Fortunately I was able to install a rope in the canopy and perform a safe drop on the tree. If we ask pretty please I bet DexterDay will post up a video of the fall. heck he might even post up some quality action shots of this fat woodpecker in this tree.
Me and Scotty Overkill both wanted to be there it looked like a lot of fun. But we had a little tree dropping of our own to do. This is a couple of pictures that I took from in the tree. Scotty has some good pictures of me in the tree that he hasn't sent to me yet! It's a 65 to 70 ft blue spruce about 32" at the butt. It was a very nice view of the mountains and the country side!
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile! That reminds me of the story I was just telling Kenis. I had lunch about 200' up in a Doug fir in the mountains of Oregon after I topped it. It was a beautiful view. Sadly no camera phone back then...
You guys get to have all the fun! I made about 20’ up in the backyard silver maple today . I had just set my rope yesterday when I got called to work so didn’t get as much play Nice work on everyone’s weekend fun!
Mr. Barcroftb made it higher up in the Beech than this. But after his gaffs started slipping out? I put my phone away and concentrated 100% on my friend Brad (whom I do consider a brother as well). A couple of these photos may be of his decent. But in the 2nd to last one you can see the speed line/zipline that we only got to use a couple times (wish I would've got a vid of it in use). A huge thank you to Brad for making a 8.5 hr trek from his place in Michigan to our little Cabin in Pa. My BIL chbryson, Mrs. Dex, and myself greatly appreciate the work you dDec, A short vid of the falling of the monster..
DexterDay and chbryson I was honored that you trusted me to take care of the problem trees for you and your family. There is no better feeling in the world than helping gooder people out with trouble trees! A little backstory for the rest of ya: Their Father, who has since passed away, pretty much built the place with his bare hands and a hammer. Its a priceless family heirloom...
