Snowloaded spruce breakage

[Burnham]

Whoohoo! Felt good to finally get in a tree.

This nice spruce lives on the Zigzag Ranger Station compound. A couple of weeks back when I lost a bunch of small native hardwoods at my place, this open grown fellow had a couple of long limbs partially break out. I know many of you understand how strong spruce is...amazing amount of really wet snow to do that!

I used Gerry B.'s DRT ropewalker system and it went smoothly. Lazy man's method...I only went up about 35 feet . Nothing here to get excited about, but what with my various and sundry physical setbacks of the last many months, I really enjoyed climbing a little.

 

[Burnham]

More.

 

[SkwerI]

Looks like a sticky sappy mess. The climber looks like he's fairly well qualified though.

 

[Burnham]

Last batch. As you can probably tell, I took out a couple of undamaged ones to clear a couple of parking spots and a sidewalk of future hazard potential.

 

[Burnham]

It wasn't bad at all, Brian. Cool weather, early enough in the spring that pitch is not yet rising, and staying near the bole.

The lower pruned limbs were done a couple of years ago, they show pitch weep, but overall, it was clean as you could ask for.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Were you going down to get your bucket of tree paint?

 

[Burnham]

Naw, I'll just use the paintball gun to shoot those shiners with black when the weather dries a little .

 

[MasterBlaster]

I thought they outlawed that method in Oregon?

 

[Burnham]

Oops, news to me .

 

[HolmenTree]

Is that an Engelmann spruce Burnham?
I saw a big one on the coast of Washington state back in the '80s, I believe it was the worlds largest spruce at the time, but now has since blown over.

Willard.

 

[Jed]

Great new-school work Burnham. The only guy I've ever seen use the newer gear before was Irish Joe B., but he blew me away: got up a 120' American Elm (if you can believe that) darn quick.

What with the snow load and all, weren't you a tad scared about that throw-ball shot? I might have been. Was that a Sitka?

 

[Jed]

Ha Willard! I almost said: "or an Engleman"!

 

[PCTREE]

Im going to refrain from comment

 

[Burnham]

Willard and Jed: Sitka spruce.

Jed: Wasn't worried in the least, big azz open grown and undamaged limbs for tie in points, and spruce fiber is so strong I wouldn't have worried about climbing up the outer half of that broken branch hanging straight down .

Paul: What did I do that deserves no comment?

 

[SkwerI]

Paul: What did I do that deserves no comment?

You didn't use a Wraptor.

 

[Jed]

He was probably referring to my ignorant classification of all that stuff as "New-School".

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Good to see you back up in a tree Burnam.

 

[squisher]

Heck yah TCOB!

 

[gf beranek]

Size for size, any green limb I could break out of a fir or redwood I could never break out of a spruce. They have the strongest limbs of any conifer I've climbed or cut.

 

[HolmenTree]

We have black spruce here in Manitoba which has been hygraded for years for its strength used in premium structural lumber. Our local lumber mill which is owned by a parent company in British Columbia, had a lift of 16ft tested and found the strength was as high as their best Douglas fir in B.C.
Our provincial tree is the white spruce which grows larger but not the same fibre strength as the smaller black spruce.
I have counted rings on the slowest growing black spruce along swamps that were 150 yrs old and only 3" dbh- 25ft tall.

Willard.

 

[Burnham]

That takes a microscope .

 

[HolmenTree]

That takes a microscope .

A pin and a very strong magnifing glass , but lets forget about looking for compression wood in this tree

 

[sotc]

I thought they outlawed that method in Oregon?

Federal lands are not subject to state laws

 

[Bermy]

As nice a demo of one handed chainsaw use as I've ever seen...

 

[Burnham]

Takes one to know one, as they say...