A few years back, I checked into the local Bobcat dealer. They wanted $2000/week to rent a CTL with a forestry cutter. IDK what the current price is around here.
Heck that's not too bad as far as rentals go. My son had a big pine tree next to his house the was struck by lightning and needed to be cut down. He hinted to me about cutting it down for him and I kept putting him off until I looked at it. It had gotten very dangerous and I knew then I was going to have to help him. A local tree company wanted $4500.00 just cut it down and another $1200.00 to take away the wood and brush. I didn't want to have to climb it and take it down in pieces because at 66 years old I thought I had gotten much smarter but when we went to the local rental place to check on a bucket lift for the day I about fell out on the floor when he told up $950.00 for a half day and another $150.00 for pickup and delivery.
I couldn't help him with the money so with that I went home got my gear and went back over there and at about noon I was standing at the stump of this 75+ foot pine tree. I looked every way imaginable for some way to lay the whole thing down without having to climb it but there was no way to let it fall that would not tear up either his or his neighbors property. My 24' ladder would not get me to the first limb and even sitting the ladder in the back of his pickup it was almost 10' short so I had to throw a line over the limb and pull myself up from there.
Once on the first limb it was still a hard climb but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. At this point I was almost half way to the top and the further up I got the closer the limbs were together easier it was to get around. once I got to within 25' of the very top I dropped my hand line so he could pull my saw up to me and I started cutting limbs off. The tree was straight as an arrow and the limbs were of equal size all the way around and my plan was to cut the heavier limbs off one side so the weight of the limbs on the other side would help guide the tree top into the tiny little spot it had to go on the ground to keep from smashing the neighbors small bushes she had planted along her property line.
As I worked my way to where I was going to start cutting limbs I saw the spot where the lightning had gone into the tree and it had blown over half of the wood away and there was very little left holding the top and keeping it from falling. It was just to dangerous to go any higher so I yelled to my son that we were going to probably have to buy the neighbor a few new bushes because I was going to have to cut out a bigger piece than I thought. She and a couple other neighbors were standing close by and she heard me yell to him and told him that would be ok just tell that old fool not to fall out of that tree because that would probably make more mess than the tree top would and laughed.LOL
I cut all the limbs off one side as I climbed back down and got to a point where there was one big heavy limb reaching out in almost the same direction the top needed to go and decided to cut it off a couple feet below that point. I notched a little chunk out of the downhill side and got in position to start making the final cut. The wind had been blowing pretty good all day but by now it was almost dark and it had been calm for the past hour but wouldn't you know it just as I had started cutting and had gotten to the point to where the weight started to pull the top in the direction it was supposed to go the wind started to rock the top and for a moment I thought it was going to pop off in the opposite direction but wood held and as I felt the weight of the limbs on the other side start to pull it back in that direction I threw the cold to my old Stihl saw and the top jumped off the top of that stump like it was spring loaded.
The whole top cleared that line of bushes by almost 10'. Of-course it wasn't in the plan for the top to land in the neighbors yard but rather come to rest right at the base of the tree or about because that line of bushes was 25' from the base of the tree and I figured it would be close but doable in getting the 10' top to land without tearing up too much. As it ended up the top landed 10' on the other side of the bushes not touching any of them. I'm just glad her little shed wasn't 10 foot closer than it was because she would have gotten a new shed out of the deal along with what was in it.LOL
By now it was dark but I didn't want to come down until I had gotten it cut off enough low enough to where I could lay it down in one piece without tearing up anything else. I cut out sections of about two or three feet on my way down cutting limbs as I came down and when I got to 50' I made my last cut and headed down for the night thinking I would go back the next day and lay it down and cut it up the rest. The trip down was a lot faster and easier than the trip up, almost fun even as I used a line to hop and skip down the side of the tree in small bunny hops. There was a time I would have thrown a line over to the next tree and done a Tarzan swing out of the tree with the chain saw in one hand cutting limbs as I passed by. LOL
Did I say I was going the next day to cut up the rest of the tree and haul it off? Well it didn't work out that way exactly. When I crawled my poor old sorry azz out of the bed the next morning everything I had was hurting, I had cuts and scratches on me in places I never thought you could scratch, even my eyes hurt. I had more sawdust in my eyes and ears than there was on my clothes I had taken off at the door. I called in a rain check the next morning and maybe I'll be healed up enough in about a week to finish up the job. I thought I was in pretty good shape and it's hard to believe that doing something like climb a little tree could make you hurt that bad.
Now back to the regular scheduled program.
Everything is made easy. Stumps are gone in literally an instant (remember they've been rotting for 2+ years), logs take some time to chew up sometimes, but it's very doable. Undergrowth is a joke. I can literally go full speed, just mowing down all the stuff. Of course, I have to go back over it a couple of times to totally get rid of it and create a nice trail, but it's still super fast. 
