Mapleman
ArboristSite Operative
"There's old tree men and there's bold tree men, but there's no old, bold tree men."
Thanks for the welcoming replies over at the post with the above mentioned title. I decided to open a thread about the weirdest tree jobs climbers and others have encountered. Maybe this thread has been covered before, if not, let's see where it goes:
Back in the late 90s I was working in the Bay Area. We were sent out to a 9-story condo in San Francisco that had been built around a 120' Monterrey Pine. The 6-man crew with Hobbs device and saws took the elevator to the roof. I threw a line over a branch and swung into the tree leaping off a railing in the process. All the branches were lowered to the roof with the Hobbs, then cut into pieces and taken down in the elevator. After that things began to get interesting.
The tree was about 4.5 feet at the base and still sizable 80' up. I began chunking with a Husky 268 and 24" bar, later switching over to a 272 and 28"-32" bar. I bombed everything straight down the atrium to the ground below where we had built a cradle to protect the pillars that held up the building. And as anyone who has worked in SF probably knows, we were working on a hillside too. Elbowing 100-150 pound chunks off the trunk and watching them freefall between the inside of the condo was certainly entertaining.
The clearance between the tree and the hand railings of the atrium varied from a few feet to a few inches. In fact in one place the trunk actually was lodged against a tire lashed to a railing. That was the only place I ran into trouble, wedging my saw in the cut. A small climbing wedge, hammer, and ten-minute ordeal rectified matters.
The whole job took about 5 hours, and I was able to converse with the condo residents between cuts. All in all a job from the weird side.
Thanks for the welcoming replies over at the post with the above mentioned title. I decided to open a thread about the weirdest tree jobs climbers and others have encountered. Maybe this thread has been covered before, if not, let's see where it goes:
Back in the late 90s I was working in the Bay Area. We were sent out to a 9-story condo in San Francisco that had been built around a 120' Monterrey Pine. The 6-man crew with Hobbs device and saws took the elevator to the roof. I threw a line over a branch and swung into the tree leaping off a railing in the process. All the branches were lowered to the roof with the Hobbs, then cut into pieces and taken down in the elevator. After that things began to get interesting.
The tree was about 4.5 feet at the base and still sizable 80' up. I began chunking with a Husky 268 and 24" bar, later switching over to a 272 and 28"-32" bar. I bombed everything straight down the atrium to the ground below where we had built a cradle to protect the pillars that held up the building. And as anyone who has worked in SF probably knows, we were working on a hillside too. Elbowing 100-150 pound chunks off the trunk and watching them freefall between the inside of the condo was certainly entertaining.
The clearance between the tree and the hand railings of the atrium varied from a few feet to a few inches. In fact in one place the trunk actually was lodged against a tire lashed to a railing. That was the only place I ran into trouble, wedging my saw in the cut. A small climbing wedge, hammer, and ten-minute ordeal rectified matters.
The whole job took about 5 hours, and I was able to converse with the condo residents between cuts. All in all a job from the weird side.
