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Grizzlyman
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 07:26pm - Edited by: Grizzlyman
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Have kind of a funny story- sort of.
My cabin is in the middle of a heavy forest. I eliminated most of the big trees within falling distance before building. I had 2 or three that I didn’t for one reason or another.
Well one of them was poplar (poplar is the worst in my experience-it’s a heavy hardwood that rots out super easy and has little strength despite its weight).
This particular poplar was a rotted out 16” tree remnant and probably 40 ft was left of it. It was definitely falling toward the cabin- toward the back and probably a 50-50 chance it would miss the cabin if it fell. Additionally I had done the eyeball math on it a million times and had convinced myself even if it fell the right way, it wasn’t tall enough to reach the cabin. But it was hanging out toward the cabin at about 20* angle-so little chance of it falling the other way.
Well today I figure I’d just take it out. I figured I’d cut it higher so that even if I was wrong it’d Definitely fall short then.
I cut it from a step ladder today about 8’ up.
It fell almost immediately before I even finished the small notch because it was so rotted. It went straight for the corner of the cabin-despite my notch, and despite my eyeball math, and despite the subtracted 8’ - It still slammed into the side of the cabin. It was so rotten that it kind of squished itself up into pulp when it hit the ground.
It sort of just plopped like wet toilet paper when it hit the cabin and the cabin didn’t even flinch. Just left a small few marks on the cement siding.
I didn’t give it the proper respect since I thought there’s no way it’ll be close enough-lesson learned. If I thought it was a danger I would have tied onto it up high and applied pressure with a winch to keep it pulled in the right direction.
Pays to be lucky I guess. lol.
Here’s the stump and the fallen tree
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Grizzlyman
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 07:52pm
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I didn’t get a before picture but here’s one from last fall with the tree
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 08:05pm
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You are SOOO lucky!
Didja go get a lot ticket?
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Fanman
Member
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 09:10pm
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Last year we had a giant poplar taken down behind our house. It looked healthy, but every year dropped one or two massive limbs in the yard. Usually trees in the backyard go down away from the house due to the prevailing winds, but if this one did fall toward the house it would have cut it in half and crushed anybody inside... the trunk was over four feet diameter at the base. The tree guy said it was the biggest poplar he'd ever seen. Cost me over $5k and took them two days, but I sleep better now.
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DRP
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 10:15pm
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Happily no damage!
More wood stuff;
Poplar is one of those common names that can be confusing, it is the common name of 2 completely different trees. I think Grizzlyman's is an aspen poplar, "popple". And Fanman's sounds like tulip poplar, a magnolia.
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Grizzlyman
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 10:35pm
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DRP
Yes it’s a bit of a catch all and can even include cottonwoods. You’re correct in our area it’s either a quaking aspen or big tooth aspen usually.
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paulz
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# Posted: 10 Aug 2025 10:59pm
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Lucky guy, beers on me. Went through something similar last week. I needed a railing for my new sidewalk, and there was a 20 footer sitting just between those two monsters above the water tank in the photo. I knew it was leaning towards the guest cabin but was only about 6” at base. Despite proper notching and pushing it still fell into the roof, lightly fortunately. Was able to tip it the other way and drag it down to the cabin.
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Brettny
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# Posted: 11 Aug 2025 06:39am
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That's a free lesson that a rope and come along is a far safer way to cut a tree. Just cutting a tree on a ladder is bad enough. If/when it does something un expected you have at least a 6' jump/fall to get out of the way.
Last winter durring a wind storm I saw 3 trees that where to close and blowing towards our cabin. All maples I put a rope in all of them with a comeAlong I tension after the notch. This was one.
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Grizzlyman
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# Posted: 11 Aug 2025 09:55am
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Brettny
Yeah. Not the safest way to do it and I know about barber chairs, etc… I am typically very safe when it comes to cutting trees. (And yes I know it only takes one time). This was very calculated believe it or not. I even used photoshop and imagery from pictures to try and map the height of the tree and superimpose that on photographs to where it would fall. Looks like I was off by 8’
The ONLY reason I did it this way on a ladder was that there was zero chance the tree fell in any other direction given its lean (see the picture) and I cut it from the backside but I wanted to make sure it was shorter because I thought it would be close. I also knew it was rotten throughout so splitting wouldn’t be an option.
The lesson here is should have taken the time to hook up a winch.
Also on that note come-alongs work great but I’ve found a better solution with an electric winch. I have the winch on chains, and I drive a thick spike through the back of another relatively close and solid tree. I wrap the winch around the anchor tree with chains. The spike just stops it from sliding up or down. Then I hook up to generator. I can then notch a tree and go back and use the winch to put tension on it. Also, if it’s a questionable situation, I can have a helper keep pulling on it as I put the back cut on. Of course if we do this we need to have the other person far far away.
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gcrank1
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# Posted: 11 Aug 2025 11:21am - Edited by: gcrank1
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Bureau of Labor Stats says that 'logging' is about 5x more dangerous than mining or agriculture (which are about equal), that make it the #2 most dangerous job in the US.
Ime, Plan A is over so quickly when things go bad that there is no time for Plan B. Im thinking that it isn't an IF but WHEN kind of job. I admit to having a few 'issues' that could have been disasters.
For those of us that engage in it non-professionally our exposure is limited (good) but so is our experience (bad) thus the need to Always err on the side of Extra caution.
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