Ugly leaner finally got prettier. New Pics

I have had this ugly dead maple right along side the driveway that blew over only to be held up by a big fir. I have been afraid it might fall sometime when we least expected. I figured if I cut it off the stump it would just slip towards the tree that was holding it up, and then I could drag it from the butt back keeping well out of the way. So that was the plan!

The cut worked out, it slipped off the stump. But when I dragged it back the top broke off and instead of crashing to the ground, it landed and stayed balanced on a 3 inch branch 60' up. Now I have a true "widow maker".

I'd know what to do if I had an extra stick of dynamite but am open to suggestions. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for all the ideas. Based on some of the responses, I'm not sure it's clear that the 20' top is resting on a branch 40'+ up from the base of the maple it's resting in. Here is another picture before I yanked the bottom out. You can see how the top fell about a foot before landing on the branch just below the break. I'm not really interested in climbing the maple with that much top directly overhead and I don't like the idea of cutting underneath it, besides it's my neighbors tree. The lift would probably be the easiest as any hoe I have access to wouldn't be big enough. I'm thinking if I can get a line up there, I should be able to pull it over.

Was gone all day today, but we had some decent winds and it still didn't come down.

ISeeDeadBTUs said:

Cable on butt, pull out with tractor. What am I missin'??

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The OP, but you're in good company. Guess I wasn't clear.

Flamestead said:

As I read it, the trunk was successfully dropped, but the top remains hung, well above an easy, safe reach for attaching rope, cable, chain, ...

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Flamestead, thanks for understanding the problem. I didn't have any trouble cutting the leaner off the stump and pulling it away. And I did use a block chained up in another tree for some extra lift. My OP was pointing out that the top didn't come down but broke off and was balancing on a 3" branch.

vandedav said:

Call a tree service or an arborists that does rope climbing up in the trees. They have what they call throw bags that they use to get there ropes into the trees. The small line that they use to throw the bags has a breaking strength around 1000 pounds. Most experienced guys could easy throw to that height and use the line to pull it down. It would probably be a 10 minute job.

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I have a throw bag for that purpose but for limbs this high they have crossbows or sling shots for launching lines, neither of which I have, but I came up with a decent work around. I have plenty of tennis balls around the house for the dog. Drilled one through and tied my throw rope to it. Tested it out and made it over the branch on my 2nd try. Unfortunately, the ball alone wasn't heavy enough to pull the line down so I had pull it back and stuff the ball with some nuts(buckshot would have worked better) and try it again. It didn't hit quite as well with the nuts inside and I only had a 2' window to hit it through. I stopped counting after 10 tries. Luckily, the tennis ball kept the string from getting caught up in all the brush when winding it in and it only took a minute for each attempt. The top and branch angle pinched the line once I got it over so I had to use the truck to transition from throw rope to pull webbing and again to my haywire. The throw rope would have broken long before this branch. With both ends of the haywire attached to my truck tie downs, I was able to pull until the branch broke and the top fell out. It ended up being just over 35'. The only casualty was the strings broke on an old tennis racquet.

It worked so well I left the ball on my throw rope as I can hit it twice as high as I throw the weight and with better accuracy.



My solution.


Throw rope finally over.


Got the webbing around.


Transition to haywire


On the way down!


The offending branch and solution.


The butt log and all 3 parts of the top.