Monday, Jan 29, 2007 at 15:14
Hi Shaker
The 30ft tree was not one of my finer moments, it was only few years
old and grew straight up near others on side of track such that it
made it difficult to get past and maybe impossible next year.
Being on steep slope as
well it was hard to gauge which way it
would fall.
If it had been much more than 200mm thick I would have left it for now.
Use a chainsaw a lot, and did the usual two cuts and it just stood
there.
Its seems hard to believe but I've seen a tree stand this way for over
a month.
No wind, but an accident waiting to happen and couldn't leave it that way, so I gave it a push with both hands about 1 meter above the cut.
It moved slightly and top got caught in another tree only about 1 meter away and it was still almost vertical.
Thought about the options (I'm deep into bush on a trail bike, before
heading off to blackberries).
Decided best was to cut it carefully as high as I safely could
about 1 meter above first cuts. This would cause the 1 meter long section
to break out under the small lean. Catch is that the break out occurs very fast
and top 25ft of tree drops vertically down, hits the ground and could go
in any direction, as its spits out lower section.
Knowing forces, I cut from where I would not get hit but this gave me
poor control of saw.
As I completed the cut the tree snapped as expected and I moved letting go
of the saw which I expected to happen.
The tree dropped 1.5 meters, spitting out the 1 meter section. It began to fall
and when at about 60 degrees on its way down it caught up in a third tree.
The saw rolled down the slope about 20 meters (vertical).
I keep my eye on the tree and when it stopped moving I grabbed it above its base
(now on the ground) and jerked it upwards and let go.
This weight of the remaining 25ft above causes the base to be re-positioned
a couple of feet further out causing the top to drop down a little more.
You have to do this just right and be prepared to jump, not reccomended
at all, and a heavy part of my assesment in how to handle the issue was that
the weight of the tree was manageable, if difficult.
Repeated this process 3 times till it finally gave up and came down.
However in its last act of defiance it now lay across the track and would have
to be cut up and moved piece by piece.
Unbelieveably the chainsaw was still running, and I slid down the 50 degree slope
to retrive it and finnish the job.
Robin Miller
FollowupID:
478783