# Anyone ever had a gusher tree ?



## hiluxxulih (Jul 27, 2010)

My dad worked for Weyerhaeuser for about 30 years and we have a video of cutting down an old grown tree that just gushed about 50 gallons of tree sap pitch out when the chain hit the pocket , man that must have been a sticky son of a *****


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## Job Corps Tree (Jul 27, 2010)

*anyone ever had a gusher tree*

Used to get a lot in IL. Cottonwoods just have to wait for the water to stop or drone the saw. Siberian elms most anything with WET wood. Once we put a saw into a green Ash Flame of the shot out of that cut, 10 feet up it had Bees and someone had tried to burn them out Fire got into the Honey Comb tell we gave it air and puff it went up City tree had to call the Firehouse to put it out so we could cut it down


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## coastalfaller (Jul 27, 2010)

Get it alot in the old growth hemlock on the west coast. Some times in the cedar too. Knew one crazy faller that was desperate for water on a hot day and drank some.........................needless to say, he regretted it!


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## deeker (Jul 27, 2010)

We dropped a 48"+ cottonwood that gushed water for over a week.

The logs were so heavy we pulled the NorwoodLM2000 next to them for milling. At the time we had no access to equipment that could lift them.

Wish I could find the pics of the water.....and it was almost a geyser.

Kevin


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## discounthunter (Jul 27, 2010)

friend in NY had a 1 yr old cherry blowdown with a rotted crotch,been collecting water the whole year,took two days to drain out after he cut into it.


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## BlueRidgeMark (Jul 27, 2010)

There are a few vids of tree gushers floating around Youtube. Some of them have been posted here. Fun stuff!


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## pops21 (Jul 28, 2010)

Here is one. Never saw one in person. Looks pretty neat. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nc9-snQrHiE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nc9-snQrHiE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>


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## hammerlogging (Jul 28, 2010)

Definately we have it too- and it can be anything from mollasses to tea to pure water. Sometimes there will be a gas pocket instead.


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## Joe46 (Jul 28, 2010)

Like other posters, I fell a big Cottonwood that spurted water like a drinking fountain.


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## Burvol (Jul 28, 2010)

I think he was talking _sap_, not water. Water is common in White Fir, some Red, Hemlock and Cedar in my area. Seeing actual sap pump out is quite the site. the best time to see that is in late spring when the sap is fully running in the bigger defective or injured trees. I had a big fir drop 5 gallons of sap or so this spring. Started off amber colored, then went to a milky white color and thick like paste.


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## Joe46 (Jul 28, 2010)

Ah, 10-4 Burvol.I fell a lot of big cedar on the Olympic Peninsula, and never really saw much come out of them??? Used to get into a lot of pitch in Hemlock however.


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## JimiLL (Jul 28, 2010)

pops21 said:


> Here is one. Never saw one in person. Looks pretty neat. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nc9-snQrHiE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nc9-snQrHiE&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>



When I was clearing land with the first excavating company I ever worked for we were on a job takin down big oak, ash poplar etc.

A couple of trees there had water (not sap, sap doesnt run like water) running out of the big cuts like crazy. I believe that was a spring time job also


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## wvlogger (Jul 28, 2010)

Beech trees are bad about water i have seen them drain for days and only get pockets of all the water. Just depeneds on how it rots i guess


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## Meadow Beaver (Jul 28, 2010)

Red maples do it here around spring time.


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## hammerlogging (Jul 29, 2010)

Burvol said:


> I think he was talking _sap_, not water.



Interesting, and no, never seen it in hardwood beyond spring time bleeding on stumps and limb cuts. Sounds like a mess.


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## tomtrees58 (Jul 29, 2010)

its nasty wen your in the tree and cant get down


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## amlogging (Jul 30, 2010)

*gusher*

I was cutting a 40+ inch cotton wood on our farm for barn lumber and once i got a good ways in i hit a pocket of luqid that sprayed back and coverd my girlfriend at the time.....needless to say that was the last time she cut timber with me hah


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## RandyMac (Jul 31, 2010)

Back in my Redwood days, there was a 22 footer I helped fall in '78, an entire day to put it on the ground. Funny thing, it was holding about five hundred gallons of water and crap, collected over the centuries. I was wrassling a block out of the cut, old Ray leans in, takes a swing with a pulaski, and knocks a 6 inch square hole into the hollow. Ray got knocked off the springboard by a column of fluid that looked like used oil, smelled bad. Ray waited for the water to clear, washed off, went back to hacking at the trunk. There were bird beaks, small bones, teeth, rusty sand, acorns left in the debris.


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## flushcut (Jul 31, 2010)

RandyMac said:


> Back in my Redwood days, there was a 22 footer I helped fall in '78, an entire day to put it on the ground. Funny thing, it was holding about five hundred gallons of water and crap, collected over the centuries. I was wrassling a block out of the cut, old Ray leans in, takes a swing with a pulaski, and knocks a 6 inch square hole into the hollow. Ray got knocked off the springboard by a column of fluid that looked like used oil, smelled bad. Ray waited for the water to clear, washed off, went back to hacking at the trunk. There were bird beaks, small bones, teeth, rusty sand, acorns left in the debris.



Now thats a story! You gotta love old trees.


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## 056 kid (Jul 31, 2010)

big forked red oaks are famouse for that chit. Chesnut oaks too. The saw shoots it all over your trousers before you know what hit you.

I had a big old dying red fir pump out a few gallons of thick sticky gluey sap, i thought I had blown up my saw cause of the smoke from the muffler when it first started. if I still had that saw, i bet you could find some sap on there.


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## madhatte (Aug 1, 2010)

First time I saw a gusher was a surprise to me. I drilled a big Dougie up the Mackenzie for a Site tree and didn't bother to look at its crown (like duh, right?) and when I pulled the extractor out, the tree just started SPEWING. 

I spun my borer out ASAP but the damage was done: pitch all over EVERTHING (bit, extractor, handle, me) and the tree took an hour or two to drain. The only solvent I had to clean my borer with was DEET. 

Top was busted out a couple hundred feet up. Go figure.


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## 2dogs (Aug 10, 2010)

A buddy of mine was falling a doug fir on a logging job near here a few years ago when he hit a pitch pocket. Before he could get the saw out of the cut he was soaked by several gallons of thin runny pitch. An hour later as the pitch started to dry it acted like glue. In all the wrong places! His... uhm, package was glued solid to his legs! He had to pull his pants down and have his partner throw dirt all over him to try and stop the adhesion. He ended up sitting in the dirt with his pants around his ankles trying to put the dirt where the sun don't shine. Yep, he tried saw mix the remove the pitch. All he got was a big burn from that. He worked another hour before calling it quits.


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## donthraen (Aug 13, 2010)

I fell a lot of cottonwood although I don't want to cut the ones I gotta cut next-We bean flooded fore about 3 months at work and have atleast 8 that Iv seen swell and split-If I can ever get to them It will be a wet time for me.The nastiest pisser Ive ever got was a mulberry tree never expected it.Foamie brownish white ooze that about made me loose my cookies from the smell-I switched chains after I cleaned up and later wen I was sharpening chains that one was strait out soled.Had to soak it in turpentine for 2 days-Glad i washed off


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## Burvol (Aug 13, 2010)

I wet my pants with a big nasty Fir the other day


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## donthraen (Aug 13, 2010)

Burvol said:


> I wet my pants with a big nasty Fir the other day



ya the first one will do that to you-either that or the other


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## tlandrum (Aug 14, 2010)

i cut a 30'dbh white oak the other day that had lots of water in it with building pressure from the heat .when i cut into that thing it blew out like a fire hydrant and kept going for a solid minute like a fire hose. it had so much pressure that when the water stopped spewing it looked like a mist of water from bleeding off an air compresser. and yes i was soaked, it even stained my clothes.


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## donthraen (Aug 14, 2010)

tlandrum2002 said:


> i cut a 30'dbh white oak the other day that had lots of water in it with building pressure from the heat .when i cut into that thing it blew out like a fire hydrant and kept going for a solid minute like a fire hose. it had so much pressure that when the water stopped spewing it looked like a mist of water from bleeding off an air compresser. and yes i was soaked, it even stained my clothes.



stained your clothes?Never got stains that didn't wash out before except pine


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## RandyMac (Aug 14, 2010)

It just now occured to me, I have some video of Redwood logging from the mid '80s, there is a tree on there that pours many gallons of sap, they cut a channel to get rid of it.


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## donthraen (Aug 14, 2010)

RandyMac said:


> It just now occured to me, I have some video of Redwood logging from the mid '80s, there is a tree on there that pours many gallons of sap, they cut a channel to get rid of it.



you gotta show it.


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## donthraen (Aug 14, 2010)

Alyse makes me wonder how they can hold so much in them.You can only fill a glass to the top but trees over fill and still doesn't spill over


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## RandyMac (Aug 14, 2010)

Don't know if I can, I'm an idiot that way.


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## donthraen (Aug 14, 2010)

I cant even get pictures up cause I cant get them smaller


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## tramp bushler (Sep 7, 2010)

coastalfaller said:


> Get it alot in the old growth hemlock on the west coast. Some times in the cedar too. Knew one crazy faller that was desperate for water on a hot day and drank some.........................needless to say, he regretted it!


 That edd be gross . Ya , I've had to leave a tree gushin and come back in an hour and still it was running out .. pretty nasty stuff .. . Sitka Spruce , Western Hemlock , Yellow and Red cedar . and had it happen on a big Cotton wood ...


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