Sorry but this is not usual process of cutting down an evergreen! But I love you description. >usual process of cutting down an evergreen is to remove all the limbs as you >climb up using a belt around your waist and around the tree. You've seen the >pictures of the lumberjack at the top of the tree, leaning back in the belt. >Then you cut sections off the top of the trunk as you come down. When those >large, heavy sections fall, the trunk whips back and forth, and the lumberjack >rides it out - like a bucking horse. It was a status job because of the skill >required to stay alive. The cutting the sections off the top was/is seldom done except in logging shows. Staying alive was one of the big risk as the tree can and some times did split down the middle when the top was cut, squashing the tree climber to death. This is the method of creating a spar tree or pole, limbed to make it free for rigging. Because of the danger involved and other reasons, many of the biger logging operations no use the commercially made portable metal towers. The spar tree and the Tower is used to drag the loges into the landing. One of my sons last logging jobs was using a spar tree to high line logs over a swampy area. The DNR and Fisheries were so impressed with his work they came out and took photos. >Old time loggers involved in cutting timber were generically known as >bushlers. Bushlers were divided into sub categories. First - the faller: In >the old days, fallers were a couple of men teamed on a crosscut saw to fall >the tree to the ground. Next - the bucker, using an ax, would trim all >branches from the fallen tree and then buck (saw) it into lengths (logs). To day the are still called fallers and buckers, only now they use chain saws and axes and wedges. The last time I saw the Lester area, was on an air search, we did not find the downed aircraft there but did see a lot of elk. Kit, Olalla WA.