mr. holden wood
ArboristSite Guru
I think I may have confused people on this one, so a couple of clarifications. I only do top down removals on single leader (excurrent) conifers. The idea is to climb all the way to the top of the tree, while only removing branches that may be in the way of your ascent. I find these are usually smaller branches that I can cut and throw far enough out from the tree that they don't get hung up. Once at the top, set a running bowline and throw the line out from the tree in the direction you want to drop the piece. Rappel from the line to where you want to make the top cut. At this point, you may want to remove a few branches to make room for your face and back cut. I like to make a shallow face cut in order to get the top to jump out away from the tree. From here I just repeat the process. I have only done a few removals this way so far, and would not do a top down removal unless the situation calls for it. I would also not rig and lower anything with this technique. That would obviously defeat the purpose of doing a top down removal since one of the objectives is to avoid having to lower branches. I hope this clarifies things. I just wanted to see if anyone else out there was doing this and maybe pick up some new ideas along the way.
More of a pain then its worth. If you try this on any tree over 40' the second or third piece breaks out all the branches on the way down. Then you have ahuge mess and a tree with all backweight. Plus the piece goes down the tree like a plinko chip, pretty sketchy.