Tree was a pain.

[beastmaster]

I did two removals today. I love doing removal, the harder the better. This second tree I did today was an exception to that.
It was a medium size shamal ash. It was on a hillside over a retaining wall with a house 15 ft away. Probably only 50 ft tall, but that was all growth from being topped. Long, skinny, no form, or structure at all.
It was growing in a fence line surrounded and squeezed in by these cedars. It had so much dead, and suckers nothing i would cut move. I was non-stop getting stabbed, hung-up, ropes tangled and knotted, saw hanging from my belt, stuck.
One of the several trunks had broke out and falling across the Cedars and was now a part of them.
I was trying to move from one trunk to another and a branch broke I was stepping on and I fell(I had my climbing line tied in a high branch) my climbing line caught me but then I was stuck for a few min. in all the dead and intermingled branches. I gaffed my foot, I gaffed the end of my new safety line. what a nightmare tree. On top of all that those shamal ashes barber chair worse then any other trees I know. I would just nick a branch and it would explode.
So any of you ever get a tree from hell you remember? Beastmaster.

 

[newbym]

There's been a few, that's for sure. The worst for me always involves bugs. There've been a few hornets' nests found that were always fun - sure makes you realize why they call that I2I material Bee Line, you really can drop fast on it!

The one that really sticks out is an Incense Cedar we were hired to remove in a trailer park. Thing was about 75' tall and although vigorous, had a dead section in the trunk that was full of ants and the owners wanted it gone. We went up in the bucket, knocked out the top and started to chunk it down. The drop zone being tight and our rigging being on another job (not to mention the too-close call with the top we just dropped :msp_rolleyes: ), we had to cut smaller pieces that we could toss with good accuracy. When I reached about 40-45' all of a sudden ants began to come out of a few holes that were exposed by the cut. I thought this had to be a different colony, there was no way this was part of the one at the ground, not 40 feet up! These weren't carpenter ants, either, but the ones called odorous house ants (Tapinoma sessile) aka piss ants, they're tiny, about an eight of an inch. So I kept cutting, figuring that I'd be through the colony after a few pieces. After 3 more pieces, by the time I had lined up and thrown the previous piece and returned to cutting, there was a layer of ants about an inch thick! After another few pieces I couldn't ignore the smell or the bites. I was getting light headed, my eyes were watering, and the little bastards were making it to every inch of exposed skin I had. I finally came down and just told the owner that I wasn't going to be able to finish until they had gotten rid of the ants. The next day most of the skin that was exposed to a lot of the ants was red and irritated, but that went away with a benedryl.

 

[Reg]

Many awkward jobs made awkward for lots of different reasons, most weeks. Now days I’ve forgotten what I did last week, sometimes this week....but it wasn’t always that way. I enjoyed the first 5 years more than any other, as I was breaking in so much new ground.

This photo was taken in 93, a dead Euc pilularis, probably about 1/3 remaining when they took that shot. About 110 ft, over buildings etc, a long drive and a long hot first day rigging out the crown. I remember the feeling of folding out the big top’s and just hoping that everything would hold together....I didn’t have the experience to know for sure.

I was raw back then, but had lots of heart. The difficulty of that job at the time, for me, sticks in mind above anything since.