Last week, we had some tall pine trees taken down. It was about 80 feet to the first limb, and at that point they were about 16" in diameter. Two feet off the ground they were over 24" in diameter. The tree service (Southeastern Tree Surgeons ) use a climber to take down the trees. First he would climb an adjacent tree that wasn't being taken down, tie off, and then swing back and forth till he reached the desired tree. Tied off using safety harness. Then he would attach a "zip line" for the branches to slide down. Place a choker on limb, cut it loose and slide it down the zip line . Just before it reached ground, ground guys would let go of zip line, allowing limb to drop in place Six trees yielded over 40,000# of saw logs, plus a bunch of shorts that were taken to recycle where the were chipped for paper pulp. Sure looks different, but we are still in the middle of a pine forest