clearance said:
Guys, myself and others I know with many more years of removal experience have never lowered logs out of any tree we were tied in. If there is room we fall the logs onto the lawn or we push blocks onto the lawn. As for divots in the lawn, we are not landscapers, the owner fixes that. It is sadly true that an I.S.A. expert and author of a book on rigging died using his own techniques to lower a log out of a pine tree. There are just to many variables to account for, the tree is not a steel spar tower, you really can't tell if it will take the shock or load. I have fallen 20ft logs 3ft thick out of trees, and the shock that comes up from the ground tells me I am doing whats best for me.
You make an excellent point.
Every aspect of tree work has risk, and we need to evaluate every technique we use and determine if the benefit outweighs the risk. When it does not, we need to use a different method.
For me, knowing that injuries to the hands, arms and shoulders from one handing, are so high and the benefits are so low, I try to make an effort to simply keep both hands on the saw when cutting.
There are times when it's hard (I'm too lazy) to reposition, or production calls for one hand use of the saw, but they have become less and less frequent as I gain experience.
As other older climbers will tell you, cuts are not the only injuries you will encounter from one handing. Many climbing carriers have ended from CTS, wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries.
I've been a long time advocate of rear handled saw use for climbers. Once you minimize one handed sawing, the advantages of top handled saws is gone. You've all seen the new Stihl 200 and Husky 336, which are now sporting rear handles for climbing. One of the large line companies is switching over for these safety reasons. The rear handle encourages you to work with two hands, which makes the climber feel slow and awkward at first, but like any other new technique he becomes good at it, and like it or not is safer.
As for bombing big wood on to the tree your tied into, I agree it has huge potential for danger. That risk can be reduced by pulley placement and redundancy, proper lowering techniques, minimizing load size, and among other things, careful tree inspection. By all means, use a separate rigging point when you can.
P_woozel said:
Running a saw one handed is a high exposure practice. It is also often the only option...
I disagree. It is often the easiest option, but I would argue that it is not the only option.
We all have cameras, someone post a picture of a situation where one handed saw use is the only option. Even a drawing would help me understand, (we all have Paint on our computers).
