tree damage

[gavin]

will climbing a tree a few times (say 3 times per tree) with gaffs do serious damage to a tree? i'm thinking about hemlock and douglas fir probably. i want to get a friend to teach me climbing but i don't want to kill any trees in the process.

 

[rmihalek]

You may or may not kill the tree. It depends on what kind of pathogens invade the wounds that the gaffs leave behind.

However, you don't need to spike into a tree to learn to climb.

Or, to look at it another way, if you learn to climb with spikes, then you will severely limit the number of trees available to you for climbing because if you spike up a tree in a park, my guess is you're going to get in trouble. If you use a throw bag and set a rope you may attract some interest, but I doubt you'd get kicked out of the park.

My guess is that 0% of rec climbers use spikes. Professional arborists doing a take down are probably the primary spike users.

 

[gavin]

sorry i should have clarified. i want to take the initiative to learn to climb (with spikes) because i've been considering trying to get into tree topping for standing stem logging. i have a friend that does it and i'm sure he'd teach me. maybe i'll talk to a person or company that has private land and ask if i can climb garbage trees...as long as they're solid. haha.

 

[clearance]

Gavin, some people on this site figure spurring trees is on par with beating kittens. When I was taking the utility arborist course in Surrey BC a few years ago we spurred the snot right outta a bunch of trees in the Green Timbers park, I could see they had been climbed before, they were like pincushions. They are still there, still alive. I think trees on the coast of BC can take it cause of the long growing season. After that I climbed trees beside powerlines to trim them, they had been spurred before me and will be spurred again. My advice is to drive down some logging road with your buddy and have some fun, take care that some ponytailed forestry guy doesn't see you, he might get his panties twisted up.

 

[woodchux]

Just spur up a tree thats about to be removed.

 

[clearance]

Gavin, I know a few guys that did standing stem for REM, sounds like a blast. They told me about blowing off 80'+ tops into standing timber with an 020, reaching into the undercut to make part of the backcut etc. The biggest top I ever did was about 50' from a D-fir removal in a park, just to see if I could. You really have to be sure of the lean, its like falling, but no where to run away. The guys I know were experienced climbers first, one utility, the other res. I windfirm now, great place to start for someone, no powerlines, houses, idiots. Kind of miss the rush working around power can be though.

 

[gavin]

cool, do you live on the island clearance? i didn't really meet many of the toppers but i knew a few of the groundmen. i know a guy that tops for AFO. thanks for the help guys. i think if i do try to get him to teach me a few things i'll talk to him and see what he thinks and he'll probably want to go in the middle of nowhere and find a low value tree. thanks guys.

 

[doggonetrees]

Do ya'll have any wind damaged trees up there? If not you can come down to Mississippi- we have all the Katrina damaged trees any-one could want to climb/learn on.:greenchainsaw:

 

[gavin]

the only wind damaged trees i see at work are way in the middle of nowhere and pretty much all blown right over. i guess i could find some with broken tops though.

 

[Fireaxman]

will climbing a tree a few times (say 3 times per tree) with gaffs do serious damage to a tree?

Since no one seems to have expressed it clearly and unequivocably yet, I guess I will. Most arborists in this forum have advized NO SPURS on anything but a take down.

One of the events that got me interested in climbing happened last July. I hired a tree crew to take down a pine with a dead top leaning over my grandmother's house. They showed up un-announced about a week after I agreed to let them do the work. Before I could get to the job site they had climbed a neighboring tree with spikes to clear a couple of branches that got in the way of their crane truck. That tree still bleeds.

We have a lot of trouble down here with fusiform fungus. The tree they cut down had fusiform, and I expect many of the trees those men climbed (with the same spurs) had fusiform. Consequently I'm pretty worried about the tree they "Pruned".

If you need to learn to climb with spurs, climb weed species (we have a lot of sweet gum down here that nobody seems to like, and they are very hardy) or (as someone suggested) find some severly storm damaged trees to practice on. SE Louisiana / SW Mississippi has plenty.

You have posted in a Recreational forum. Practice SPUR climbing might better be discussed in the "Arborist 101" forum. I would expect recreational climbers to spur a tree VERY, VERY, (did I say VERY ?) SELDOM.

 

[Climb020]

I would definitly not spike a live tree that would be around for a while. Being that you are learning chances are you will gaff out and sliff and cause your spike to scrape of large pieces of the bark and cambium layer of the tree. This is no good. Look for declining and disease trees that don't have a chance of living. Also spikeing a dead tree is always a good though. BUT make SURE that the tree is still solid and has good wood. The bark should not be gone and the wood all pulpy. Best to destroy what is already destroyed.

 

[Jack Green]

To spike or not to spike ?

I must concur with fireaxe man and climber 020 if your'e dismantling the tree (section felling) then by all means spike it but for any rec/training/pruning operation keep them spikes in the truck . The only possible exception to this carved in stone tree climbing standard I can think of would be in the event of an aerial rescue and only then if it was really necesary. keep it non invasive

 

[Slyder]

Hey, I have two 70 - 80' pines you can spike up all you want and when your done feel free to cut them down. I want to get rid of them anyway.
Dang, I didn't realize you live so far away.

Well I tried.
Good luck.

 

[rbtree]

Jack, climb020 wants to learn to climb on gaffs, so as to maybe be able to get a job with a hei logging outfit. It's called standing stem logging. I have a great video that Gerry Beranek send me, put out as a promo Erickson Sky Crane to show their operation. After the speed motivated climbers top the trees, at about 8 inches or so, they come down and do an overlap butt cut, leaving only a tiny bit of mid holding wood. They indicate to the chopper pilot what direction the hinge is facing so he knows at what aspect to grab it with his grapple. Amazing!

And climb020 came here, asking if repeated gaffing would hiurt trees. Then, after feedback, he said he'd look for junky looking trees, and in the woods. I see no problem with that. Heck, out here in the PNW, most of my competition gaffs all their prune jobs.

020, my guess is, you'd take a long time before you'd be good enough or fast enough for those guys.....But, hey, go for the gusto!!

Here's our gaff climbed prune job of the day....a basal prune, heh

 

[Climb020]

Think your talking about gavin there, not myself.

 

[rbtree]

Wel, duh.....sorry climb 020...guess I can't read a thread very well...