Here in Boulder Colorado trees grow in weird places sometimes. It ends up that way for a variety of reasons, maybe it’s a volunteer that was never meant to be there or maybe the tree started out really cute and small but now it’s huge and ugly. However it came about, it inevitably must come to an end and trees in tight spots are some of the hardest to remove. I have also found them to be the most rewarding projects to complete.
There is definitely skill involved in tight quarter tree removal and there are a couple of main ways to do it. An arborist can use ropes to carefully lower out sections of the tree, we call this rigging. This is something like billiards where you reduce the number of variables and, as long as there is a consistent input, you get a predictable result. An arborist could also choose to cut the tree into pieces they can manage to throw out of the tree by hand. This is like juggling combined with corn hole or horseshoes where you can’t drop the piece and you must manage to throw it into a specific spot while having it land in a specific way.
Every climber has a general preference and often the situation dictates what must be done, but usually you’re doing a bit of both to get the tree down safely with minimal impact to the work area. The best that I’ve seen do it are seamlessly switching back and forth, delivering appropriately sized pieces into the available drop zone at a pace that that maintains efficient workflow for the ground crew. It can be a beautiful symphony when it’s well done.
Whatever technique you use, a lot of success or failure boils down to care and patience. I think that’s why these projects are so rewarding to complete, though they can sometimes be difficult to get through. A climber has to maintain their focus and exercise their force of will, sometimes over the course of a whole work day, to successfully guide every piece out of the treetop. When it’s over and the tree is just gone, like some magic trick, and there’s almost no way to tell that you were even there, it’s a good feeling.
Ray Rockett, Arborist 