Yesterday Vertical Techniques did a take-down of a Red Oak (Quercus rubrum) near Hurley, WI. It was a beautiful day. The temps were in the high twenties and there was very little precipitation. We had to snowshoe into the job-sight which was on a hill. The drive-way had about two and a half feet of snow on it but it was crusty. The views from the top of the tree made me feel like we were closer to the Appalachian Mountain than Lake Superior. It was really beautiful up there. We did encounter a slight flurry for about an hour, but I didn't notice. Katy was my ground support. The tree was located on a hill and about five feet off of a hunting cabin. Due to the desire of the client to protect the cabin, a trailer and the surrounding trees, most of it had to be rigged down. I was happy to have my wife on the ropes as she great at rigging and very attentive to my needs as a climber. I used a 1/2 inch stable-braid rigging line and tailboard block along with a Rock-exotica mini-swivel pulley for my rigging set-up. We had a port-a-wrap set up on the base of the tree for friction control. We do have a GRCS (Good Rigging Control System) which is a Harken Nautical winch installed on a plate that can be used to lift limbs, but since we didn't need it, we didn't use it for that job. (I love my winch and would hate to crash a piece of wood on it unnecessarily). Due to the size of the drop zone, there was very little branch material that I was able to air-mail to the ground. Katy was fantastic on the rope. As I climbed I installed the main block as well as the redirect pulley. This allowed us to swing pieces that were growing over the house back into the drop zone. It worked well. The tree had two stems. I was able to rig out the branches of the smaller one and then snap-cuts on the wood to put it all in a pile in the drop zone. I then went back up and rigged the rest of the branches down into the drop zone. The pile of branches was substantial, but it was a good cushion for the wood. Once the top of the main-stem was down, I was then able to air-mail the wood. We left the trunk at about 12 feet so that the client could use it for access to the roof of the cabin. I advised him to use Round-up to kill the trunk, but the construction damage to the tree (soil-compaction as well as mechanical damage to the root flare) was severe. I don't believe that this tree was long for this world anyway. The buds seemed quite dry and most of them were even black. This dessication indicated that the tree was stressed at best. I note these conditions because I generally don't just leave trunks of living trees standing by structures if I believe that they will resprout and grow as that makes a future removal inevitable, and with a compromised structure, potentially dangerous. All in all it was great day. I hope you like the pictures...
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