James KIlpatrick and Scott Forest

James Kilpatrick, Scott Forest. two amazing climbers from New Zealand who stopped by while visiting the U.S. to work with me in the spring of '08.

Kiwis in Harlem

James Kilpatrick removal in Harlem.

Scott Forest came in 2nd place this year in the tree climbers world championship competition and represented the u.k. winning first place in England.

Scott Forest

James and Scott in a large Beech tree.

Thilo Beeker

Thilo Beeker owns Nordic tree care company in Sweden. splicing rope in my apartment. Thilo has visited with me a few times in the U.S.

Thilo Beeker rigging w/crane

Kiah Martin

Kiah Martin works at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne where she is the senior arborist. She has also won the womens world tree climbing competition at least once, maybe twice? She worked with me during a stay in the states for the international tree climbing competition.

throwball practice...check out that pendulum!!

i can't hit that target..you do it Kiah.

whoosh....

Chrissy Spence

Chrissy Spence from the New Zealand chapter, she has just won womens world tree climbing championship week before.

Marlies Laser, former womans European wide tree climbing champion. me. Kiah Martin, former womens World tree climbing champion.

Giant london plane tree near mosholu gate at NYBG. I had the pleasure of being one of many people who have worked on this tree.

Acer griseum

Paper bark maple, Acer griseum. one of my favorite trees when i worked at the NYBG. I had the pleasure of deadwood pruning this tree.

Acer griseum

Gingko

One of my favorite neighborhood trees. this is a huge gingko biloba growing near 207th street and broadway.

Rigging

another one of the things i enjoy immensely as part of tree work is rigging. problem solving by way of rigging, is incredibly interesting and as much fun as any puzzle to solve. in the following rigging scenarios one situation would have been incredibly dangerous for a climber and the other was just plain fun to figure out how to lower 2 enormous dead stems under complete control with no impact to the surrounding landscape with out climbing and without a crane.

rigging for lowering entire tulip stems in one piece

two double stemmed tulip trees. the one to the right with a blue pulley attached is dead. the one to the left with the red pulley is live.

the idea here was to install a rigging point in the live tree to lower each of two dead stems in one cut,one stem at a time. i wanted to avoid damaging the surrounding trees and shrubs. the dismantling of the dead tulip could have been accomplished in many ways. the larger live tulip nearby gave me the idea to setup a rigging scenario, whereby i could cut each of the two dead stems in one shot.

the first part was to install a large steel rigging block attached to a 3/4" doublebraid rope tied off to a port-a-wrap at the base of the tree. all the rigging was installed from the ground using throw lines. the double braid was threaded thru 2 crotches about 75' up in the larger live tulip. 2 crotches to distribute the load between two stems.

here is the 3/4 double braid attached to the port-a-wrap, attached to a 3/4 tenex whoopie sling.

a 5/8 doublebraid was preinstalled into the steel block. using throwlines the 5/8 was tied off to the near top of one of the dead stems. a closeup of the block and rope is shown in the second photo of this series.

the dead stem tied off to the rigging block.

this red pulley fair leads the 5/8 line over to another block which then fair leads the line into a ratcheting bollard.

rope being redirected as described in previous shot.

blue pulley fair leads line into bollard. the line was then tensioned, cranked as tight as practical and tied off. the stem is now ready to be cut from the ground.

the dead stem was cut, detached it floated over towards the rigging point and is hanging next to the red pulley on the left.

dead stem hanging off of steel pulley. the dead stem was approximately 45' and about 24" diameter.

the ground man lowers the stem as another cuts chunks. notice cut chunks laying under stem.

ground man cutting chunks as stem is lowered.