Great pictures Rodger!
When I had 11 trees removed last year one of them was beyond the reach of the 120 foot crane they brought in. That was left to the "Tree Monkey" which is what he called himself just as yours did. He used his spurs to scramble up to the top of this 70 footer and used the rope trick you described of using the tree itself to disassemble it limb by limb and section by section. I was amazed that it only took him about 30 minutes to do that tree.
For all the others, the crane lifted him to the top of each tree and he placed a big sling around the trunk about 20 feet from the top and then scrambled down to the half-way point and cut off the top half of the tree. The crane would lift it from the backyard to the front where it would either be lowered into the chopper or cut up for lumber depending on how healthy the wood looked. I shot a video of one lift and stuck it on YouTube because I was so impressed with how the crane operator was able to sneak the crane boom around my tower and under my antennas with 50+ feet of tree hanging over my house. That crane operator must be great at video games!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDXwDbtqygIt was an amazing operation and the Tree Monkey worked with very few breaks for roughly 10 hours until the whole job was done. He ended his day by being dropped down on top of the 110 foot pine in my front yard and cabling it in 3 places (it splits into two trunks at about the 30 foot level) to strengthen it.
After watching that crew at work I have a ton of respect for their skill, physical strength, physical endurance, and courage.
Hope your trees stay healthy and hold up your wires well!
Rob
