Takedown - leaning ivy covered oak

pantheraba

More biners!!!
Joined
Jul 31, 2005
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near Atlanta
My niece's husband called me last Thurs. late afternoon...they had just noticed that an ivy covered oak in the back yard was starting to lean towards the house. I loaded up some gear and got there about an hour before dark...found the ground upheaving, roots starting to erupt thru the ground. A probe found air pockets in the upheaval area.

I set a line about 50 feet up (9/16 stable braid) and guyed the tree back against the lean with some blocks for redirects. I went back Saturday and set a high line for access...didn't want to climb a possible "faller" and couldn't have gotten thru the ivy anyway.

The high line was a bit higher on the left side which meant I would "zip" a bit, and positioning would be difficult. I set my Poison Ivy line at 70 feet and used it to climb to my work height plus as a side belay while on the tree.

Once I got a few big limbs off the tree I felt OK about safetying to the tree..I still kept the guy line on as long as I could.

I haven't accessed a tree quite like this before and thought some of y'all might find it interesting.

Question...this was a 32 MB video upload to Google video...quality is so-so. How does one get better quality...larger file size? What size files are necessary for clarity?

<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-7214668571601822956&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>
 
Cool vid Gary... That ivy plain looked like a pain ... Sure got er done ;)
Looked like you had to go up twice and pull your self over... Had to reset a line for position?? Just curious and trying to read the vid :)
 
Nothing like a nice little bit of Ivy to make a job extra fun
 
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  • #6
and the things living in the ivy

Hah! Only came across one squirrel...Jimmy found lots of nests, though.

Yep, Cursed, had to come down. The big limb parallel to the fence was a chore. I tried to notch it away from the fence, didn't put a pull rope in it...when I started the back cut it eased toward the fence. My groundie couldn't get a pull line set (it was a hard throw and he had only watched me do it earlier) so I went down and set the pull line. While down the 2 of us pulled the limb and broke it away from the fence. It was the biggest limb and loud and crashing and all that -- of course, the camera wasn't running for that one. :D
 
Nicely done, Gary...though it's a bit strange to see you working in full daylight :P.

By my calculations, Wagnaw or Brendon would have knocked it out in 28.5 minutes :lol:. Sure would be nice to have that twenty-something steam again ;).

Me, these days it'd take 4 hours :roll:.

Good job of taking care of yourself with the support rigging and secure tie in.
 
Nicely done, Gary...though it's a bit strange to see you working in full daylight :P.

By my calculations, Wagnaw or Brendon would have knocked it out in 28.5 minutes :lol:. Sure would be nice to have that twenty-something steam again ;).

Me, these days it'd take 4 hours :roll:.

Good job of taking care of yourself with the support rigging and secure tie in.

long is better Burnham;)...leave it to the kids to be quick:lol:
 
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  • #11
Nicely done, Gary...though it's a bit strange to see you working in full daylight :P.

By my calculations, Wagnaw or Brendon would have knocked it out in 28.5 minutes :lol:. Sure would be nice to have that twenty-something steam again ;).

Me, these days it'd take 4 hours :roll:.

Good job of taking care of yourself with the support rigging and secure tie in.

Haha...daylight was nice..though it was post dark when I finally left.

28.5 minutes----you are probably right, those guys are like Lightning McQueen. I gotta make myself be methodical since I don't do this all the time. I still catch mistakes as I go along on one like this and have to reset something once in awhile; e.g. realizing that if a limb goes the wrong way it could drag on the highline and effect me in the tree. I caught that one after I had one of the limbs rigged to cut and had to change the setup.
 
Very cool vid and nice job! Thanks for posting. I even picked up a few things. Don't sweat it man I don't do this "full time" either and if anything I'm a bit "over" safe - if there is such a thing. I've also been called "painfully slow" but that's OK at the end of the day I've had fun and no one gets hurt. ;)
 
Nice

Looks like your missing the grcs :/: .How'd ya handle down all that wood:O I like the way you utilized your surroundings, and made safety your #1 priority. cool vid, got any more?8)
 
Shoo.... It would take me a while to do that thing. Easily four hours...

Ohh... and I talked to my sister the other day, and she corrected me. That pine took 40 minutes. :roll:



Nice Vid Gary! I think you just gave new meaning to doing the "air walk" Nice tie-in set ups like that are awesome, and I think what you gain in confidence over you're personal safety makes up for time setting up many times over.

Good on you for working smarter and not harder!
 
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  • #18
drive time?:whine:

Are you asking how long it took to get to the job site? about 20 minutes...is there a joke there somewhere? :/: I think I did refer to "drive time" in one of my threads before...is this a cruel reminder???? :lol:

Haha, Wagnaw, "airwalk" is a good term...you are right, it felt good working off the high line, knowing that if the tree decided to leave me I didn't have to go with it...though that would have been a real weird site to watch it fall away. :\:

wll, I bombed most of that wood...got the owner's OK to trash the fence if I had to...he plans to replace someday anyway. Luckily, I didn't trash the fence but the freedom to do so was nice. More videos??? Be careful what you ask for...if you choose "More from user" tab there are some more that I did over the years, too...a hodge-podge:

<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=8903789416120180719&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>

<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-3036350107250697324&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>

<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-8377550728279065927&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>
 
if the videos seem dark at the end, its not the camera, the sun gets tierd of waiting on gary sometimes:lol:
 
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