Lost a whole morning to a rotten maple on Elm Street

Had a job in Westbrook last Tuesday, a big silver maple that looked fine from the ground, but halfway up the trunk I found a cavity big enough to stick my arm in. Scrapped the whole plan and had to come down just to reassess. Has anyone else had a tree surprise you like that when you were already rigged in?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese_perry61mo ago

Jeez, that's a rough way to start a day. How deep did that cavity actually go, like was it hollow all the way down to the base or just a big pocket near your tie-in point? I've had a couple where the rot was way worse inside than the bark let on, but never one that made me bail out mid-climb. Makes you wonder how many of those "good" trees we've been on were just holding together by a thread, you know?

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the_derek1mo ago

Man, it went all the way down. Sounded like a drum when I tapped it below the cavity. Scary stuff. Had a maple last year that looked solid, but the spar was just a shell around a mush core. You just never know until you get a saw in there. Makes you second guess every sound tree after something like that.