TIL from a guy at the Portland yard that you can read a tree's lean before you ever cut it

Thea Davis · 2026-09-11T05:50:04.462582+00:00

I was loading logs last Tuesday and this older climber pointed at a big maple and asked me which way it wanted to go. I shrugged and said I'd just wedge it. He walked me around the trunk and had me look at where the bark was stretched tight on one side and wrinkled on the other, then told me to look up at how the crown leaned back over the hill. He said the stretch marks face the side it wants to fall toward, and the wrinkles are the compression side pulling against it. I tried it on three trees the rest of that week and he was dead on every time, even on one that looked straight from the road.

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TIL from a guy at the Portland yard that you can read a tree's lean before you ever cut it | Arborists - HW Forums