Rigging a complete skyline system to remove a declining maple in tight quarters.#precisiontree#arborist#treeservice#comox#courtenay
Spindly 100′ maple removal showing signs of significant decline, no room to fall in one piece, overhanging single phase BCH power line. No bucket truck access.
Two large adjacent fir tree offered a rare opportunity to set up a skyline which was determined to be the safest way to remove the hazardous tree. This is sketch of the game plan.
Some of the gear on hand to safely set up the skyline.
Rigging from the ground. The blue rope is the haul back line to aid in horizontal control of the aerial worker. The orange rope is the actual skyline bridging the two fir tree which the aerial worker will repel off of using a couple of pulleys. Both lines tensioned by 5:1 rigging system from the ground and terminated at port-a-wraps.
Chad Smith dropping into the skyline system.
Chad Smith using the skyline to repel directly down onto the maple tree, safely keeping weight off the very small diameter declining limbs.
Working the maple limbs back away from the single phase BCH primary.
Tye Flath helped set up the rigging and staying aloft in case his assistance was needed.
Chad Smith chunking down the first of the two co-dominant maple stems.
The skyline enable Chad to move freely around the maple without having to worry about swinging (if he had only been tied into one tree) and allowed ground workers to aid in ascension.
Removing the remaining co-dominant stem.
Chad Smith ran out of climbing line repelling out of the tree and had to down climb the last 30′. No rest for the weary, job well done. Nobody hurt, no damage, power on.
We thought there would be more decay in the butt of the stump, but some decline is still obvious. There were holes penetrating the trunk where previous branch failures had occurred. Better safe than sorry….