Got a 60-foot oak hung up in a maple during a storm cleanup in Nashville last Tuesday

My rope setup slipped and the whole thing came crashing sideways instead of falling clean. Had to bring in a skid steer to yank it free and it took 4 hours to untangle. Anyone else ever had a tree hang up mid-cut like that and have to completely change their approach?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaretc422d ago

Aw man, that sounds like a real nightmare of a job. I gotta chime in though, I think you might be mixing up your tree species a bit. A 60-foot oak hung up in a maple? That's a lot of weight for a maple to hold, especially if it's a sugar maple or red maple. Those tend to have more brittle wood than people realize. Usually when a big hardwood like an oak falls into another, it's more common to see it caught in a stronger tree like a hickory or another oak. It wasn't a silver maple was it? Those things are notorious for splitting under heavy loads. Either way, I feel your pain on that rope setup failure, happens to the best of us when the wind gets tricky.

wesley6391d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah and my rope work is basically me practicing for that kind of disaster at this point lol.

lilyt231d ago

Jumped in to say this is exactly why i stopped believing in "clean cuts" a long time ago. Everything in life is like that rope setup, you plan for a straight drop but the wind or the branches or someone else's bad day twists it sideways. Had a buddy try to drop a willow last spring and it got hung up in his neighbor's fence for the same reason, those maples and oaks have their own grudges apparently. The skid steer rescue is the real world fix, happens way more than people admit out loud.