Almost too big for my 036

[AT sawyer]

Had an old growth oak fall across one of my trails. The rootball was loose and ready to roll but for a stout hickory holding the trunk about 20 feet up from the rootball. The pic shows it from the top side; the off side was the compression side with a steep downhill and poor footing. After making my offside cut and burying the 20" bar as far as I could I started in from the other side, but couldn't meet my cuts given the diameter of the tree. I opted to cut out a half-round big enough to give me further access to the tree's insides, but that took a fair amount of top-bore cutting and sectioning. When I made my release cut, the rootball and 20' of solid trunk went spinning downhill like a steam roller ( we flagged the trail and made sure no one was coming before setting it free).

I am curious about how others would critique the technique I used (remove a half-round to get further inside of the tree) and would they do it differently? We were five miles from the trailhead, so going back for a bigger saw wasn't going to happen.

 

[forestryworks]

nice sized oak there

 

[Cletuspsc]

Lotta wood in that tree. if what you did worked the way you expected it to and you were never in harms way then you did it right. in my book at least.

 

[Mike Van]

Hey, thats quite an oak AT - If it's all going for firewood, what you did worked, just some extra work is all. I've got a 28" I put on my 041 when I need it, it gets the job done as long as you don't lean on it.

 

[AT sawyer]

It was a big'un. I think it would have been faster with my crosscut, as it has a 6' blade and the tree was tensioned such that it would have allowed a top cut with wedging. Didn't have it with me though, so I burned a lot of fossil fuel to get it cut.

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Simonds Royal Chinook