Thanks for sharing Stephen, some terrible stories but there's usually a lesson there. i haven't had the chance to do many pines, here it's silver maples, dead ash trees, occasional hickory or oak. Only conifers are white pine, blue spruce, some others but those are the main ones in people's yards. I've had dead oaks with obvious root issues that i came down from, but the wood itself is bomber. I also try to do as little negative rigging as possible, around here i can sometimes get away with it. If he would have taken a smaller top, maybe either free falled it or speedline, would this be a different story? Or is it one of those where he shouldn't have been there no matter what? I always thought if your bounce test was ok then it's probably ok to climb, but rigging and even the stress of the removal (uneven weight, weight shifting as the tree is dismantled, etc) requires further investigation upon ascent. I've always errored on the side of caution, but isn't that more or less true?
