That live oak I tried to climb nearly took me out last winter

I was in Austin working a big live oak removal after a storm and thought I had my rope set solid. Got maybe 15 feet up and a big branch I didn't see shifted under my weight, dropped me straight onto my harness. Had to rappel down and reset with a different anchor point, took an extra hour. Anyone else had a climb where the tree tricked you like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

felix_hayes6425d ago

You ever get that feeling where the tree is just waiting for you to make the wrong move? Last time that happened to me, I thought my harness was my friend until it wasn't.

rubys8020d ago

Damn @felix_hayes64 that harness feeling hits different when the tree bites back. My buddy Dave had a similar thing happen with a white oak up in Wisconsin. He was trimming limbs after a windstorm, thought he had his line in a solid crotch, got halfway up and the whole branch he was tied into just peeled off the trunk like a banana. Caught him on his secondary line, but sheesh, he said the sound alone made his stomach drop. Took him like three weeks before he could climb again without double checking every anchor like five times. The way those trees hide their weak spots is honestly kind of scary.

robertb4725d ago

Man, that exact thing happened to me last year with a big old maple in my backyard. Read an article from some forestry guy about how live oaks specifically have those hidden stress points in their branch unions, especially after ice storms. The article said climbers get tricked because the bark looks healthy but the wood inside can be compromised. @felix_hayes64 mentioned that harness feeling, and I totally get it - my first fall was from trusting a crack that looked solid but just gave way underneath me. Took me a while to shake that anxious feeling every time I set a new anchor point. Your story sounds exactly like what that article was warning about with those shifting weight branches.