Eucalyptus/Gum trees safe to climb?

[lionpea]

Just Wondering if anyone can tell me if Eucalyptus/Gum trees are safe to climb as ive heard that they drop their branches?

[Timbermcpherson]

All trees are safe to climb. Falling out of them tends to be the problem.

 

Gums are safer than willows IMHO.

[geoff]

Take each tree on its merits/faults,a euc is no worse that most if its a sound tree,check your unions & look at the structure on the ground & when in the tree,get familiar with VTA,(visual tree assesment),the pitfalls are there to see generaly & its a climbers lot to be familiar with what to look for.

[MOG]

depends on each tree. and type of gum/euc it is. as there are like over 700 speices i think, some are strong some are weak and shed branches. So it down to working with good practice's and selecting good anchor points etc etc. Geoff advise was very good i thought tho. You can feel in the tree as well, make sure you observe how the wood holds/ breaks and moves when you do your cuts etc.

 

Cheers MOG

[Boboomurph]

Euc's are what i mostly climb Tassie in and saftey does depend a lots of factors.A couple a times a year i get to climb a big one. These were on the West Coast of Tassie the tallest 65 the other 52 meters. We had to deadwood them as they wanted to set up an exploration drill rig under them.

[Adam Bourne]

Awesome pictures mate......

 

na nothing wrong eucas.....as Geoff and others have said, do all your VTA's and you will be fine......

[Mark Bolam]

As the lads have said, treat each tree individually and you should be ok.

 

I generally find Eucs OK, and pretty strong, but there are a lot of different types.

 

Wouldn't have fancied this one, mind....

 

[ame=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y6hEfav9ZwI]Tahune Day 3 Big Dead Tree - YouTube[/ame]

[Ollie Wall]

I've always found them fine to climb...anchored into branches the size of my wrist etc. But as the other guys say look at the tree thoroughly and check your points!

 

Hope this helps

 

Ollie

[andrew t]

Eucalyptus trees as they are evergreen have sometimes got twisted branches from torsion you will see this some times on the stem or scaffold branches i would say avoid these areas for main line .Once i was taking one down on spikes that was badly twisted and it made a hell of a noise as it let the presure out.

[Ewan Murray]

River redgums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) is known for dropping large limbs there are alot of species many look very similar the timber is strong in most some other aspects come into it including whether it not it has fruit (gum nuts) on the end of the limbs as this can make the limb deceptively heavy! Just be sensible use vta and climb safe.

Ewan