No, I am NOT going to try to take down a dead 100' Hickory tree!

[tacticalturnip]

It sure is a photogenic old dead tree.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Speed things up a bit, put a deep notch in it and a partial cut on the other side and let the wind take er down in the next windstorm. Might speed it up by a few years.

I think I would notch it towards the pasture vs towards the woods. Maybe trying to hit the little tree on that tree line. It appears to be leaning towards the pasture you might get it to go towards the little tree.
Once its down chunk it and use a grapple or push into the woods.

Lots a good smoking wood there....

Or as you've suggested let nature take its course. You could always advertise free hickory wood you cut... After you sign a release that is...

 

[5030]

It's not 100 foot high either, more like 70 max. Hickory, dead or alive is resilent wood so don't expect it to come down anytime soon.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Like others have mentioned, I would be tempted to burn it down. What is the best way to guesstimate the high of a tree ?

 

[BnRidge]

Hickory, dead or alive is resilent wood

I find that it is brittle, and tends to split midway up, dropping a large branch with the end still hung up. Many hickories here just left that way, as they are too dangerous to touch. Also hickory tends to rot fast - there are many live split trees here, but no standing dead ones. They fall and rot shortly after they die. Dense wood when dried, make great firewood and tool handles, but not very weather resistant at all. Shagbark hickory.

 

[RandyT]

I would do a notch and backcut to drop the tree toward the camera.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Like others have mentioned, I would be tempted to burn it down. What is the best way to guesstimate the high of a tree ?

From my old FFA days, you take a stick about as long as your arm. Hold it at 90 degrees from your body, walk backwards until the top of the stick is equal to the top of the tree. From there use a measuring tape to get the number. Or as we do walk off an approximate yards length and do the math.

 

[oldnslo]

Like others have mentioned, I would be tempted to burn it down. What is the best way to guesstimate the high of a tree ?

Method for estimating height From Boy Scout days.

Take a stick or post of known height like five or six feet. Put this at base of the tree.
Now walk away from the tree until the height of your thumb matches the height of the post with your arm fully extended.
Note position of top of your thumb. Move your arm up till bottom of thump is at that position (top of post). Repeat this moving up the tree counting number of times you move your arm up.

This gives you an estimate on height that works reasonably well.

 

[EscapedSuburbia]

I had a very large mostly dead willow that I needed to take down last month. There was no way I was going at it with a chainsaw because it was partly hollow and had a split in the middle. I knew it was going to be unpredictable. I ended up pulling it down section by section with my truck using a snatch block as a redirect. Willow is brittle so it was quite easy - I'm not sure if hickory would be similar.

 

[xyz123]

I had a monster willow split in a storm way back. Glad it is gone too.
Cut like 9-11 more smaller ones down out in back area after it went down.

I dropped the big sections one at a time like a regular tree. Just like I did a multiple maple recently this year.

Then once had all of those big sections off, I just stumped the big section off.