High Line Oak Removal

Last week we did a removal of a White Oak (Quercus Alba) in Green Lake, Wisconsin.  This tree was not an easy up and down with no rigging.  It had an S-shaped trunk and there was a large pocket of decay in the "S".   This fact made this tree much more difficult than it would have been without the decay. This was coupled with the fact that the tree was growing over a chimney, an antenna, and roof.  The only saving grace was that there were two trees flanking either side of it.  One of them was a beautiful and structurally sound White Oak.  The other was previously topped Red Maple (Acer rubrum).  We looked at the tree were quite confounded initially.  After some thought though, we were able to come up with a plan that incorporated both of the "flanking" trees to create a high-line that we could rig to.  I was comfortable climbing the tree and as long as I didn't need to rig to it, I felt confident that it wouldn't fail under my weight or the forces generated by my climbing it to rig it down.  The Red Maple had to have two giant sprouts lashed together in order to get enough height to utilize the high-line.  Dave had lashed two twelve-foot 4x4s to the "S"-curve in the trunk to add stability.  I am not too sure that this ultimately, helped, but I am certain that it didn't hurt.  I climbed the tree and rigged out small pieces to the high-line.  It went perfectly!  There was no shock-loading of the tree and we were able to get the pieces over the antenna, the chimney and roof out without doing any damage. I am glad that we used the high-line because once the brush was gone, the stability that it provided was gone and the trunk really started to move in an unnatural way.  Though it took awhile to set up, it was well worth it in the end even if only for the piece of mind that I felt by not having to rig to such a rotten tree.  Here are some pictures, I hope you like them.