I almost got a Darwin Award. There was this big old dead Aspen in my front yard I had to take down. Rather than just fell it with my chainsaw, what I do is to dig around the stump and cut through the roots with an axe and sawzall after I tie a rope to it. I then use my come along to pull the tree over. The reason being, the weight of the tree pulls out the stump.
Invariably there are always a few roots deeper that get missed but usually the tree just leans over enough to bring them up to light. Not this time.
I use a rope that is longer than the tree is tall so that I can work the come along from a safe distance. With so much rope, there is quite a bit of stretch and I have only so much cable run on my come along. Anyway... I ran out of cable and the damn tree only moved a few degrees off plumb so I decided to go to the midpoint to pull downward on the rope to gain a bit of slack so that I could shorten up the rope for a second pull. I've done this countless times without incident.
I jumped up and grabbed the rope to give it a good yank and the damn root that was holding up the tree let go. The rope went slack and I found myself laying on the ground with the realization that the tree was about to come down on top of me! I scrambled on all fours as the trunk landed near my heels. It was a good thing that I had previously removed the lower limbs as they would certainly have hit me.
As I said, I've done this countless times before without incident. I've had big trees lean over at 45 degrees and the roots still hold it up. I also have chain and a long steel cable which has no stretch to it but found the rope easier to tie off.
Live and learn...
Invariably there are always a few roots deeper that get missed but usually the tree just leans over enough to bring them up to light. Not this time.
I use a rope that is longer than the tree is tall so that I can work the come along from a safe distance. With so much rope, there is quite a bit of stretch and I have only so much cable run on my come along. Anyway... I ran out of cable and the damn tree only moved a few degrees off plumb so I decided to go to the midpoint to pull downward on the rope to gain a bit of slack so that I could shorten up the rope for a second pull. I've done this countless times without incident.
I jumped up and grabbed the rope to give it a good yank and the damn root that was holding up the tree let go. The rope went slack and I found myself laying on the ground with the realization that the tree was about to come down on top of me! I scrambled on all fours as the trunk landed near my heels. It was a good thing that I had previously removed the lower limbs as they would certainly have hit me.
As I said, I've done this countless times before without incident. I've had big trees lean over at 45 degrees and the roots still hold it up. I also have chain and a long steel cable which has no stretch to it but found the rope easier to tie off.
Live and learn...