5 Trees That Can Put You in the Hospital. Number 3 Is Probably Shading Your Tent Right Now

It's a hot afternoon in July and you pull into a campsite. You do what everybody does. You find the biggest shade tree on the lot and you put your tent right under it. That tree is number 3 on this list, and on a still day with no wind at all, it can drop a green limb right where you're about to sleep. I cut timber for forty-two years, and the woods tried to take a few of us from above. These are the five trees an old logger won't camp under, won't eat lunch under, and won't park a truck under. The tree with mushrooms growing out of the trunk, and how to knock on it. The dead ash, and why it is not like any other dead tree in the woods. The big healthy shade tree, and what arborists call summer branch drop. The gray hemlock on the creek bank. And number one, the one my saw partner Manny dragged me out from under in 1974. The loggers had a name for it. Every one comes with a thirty-second check you can do from the ground before you drive the first stake. Harlan Sawyer. Sawyer Ridge, Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Forty-two years in the timber, 1969 to 2011. Look up before you sit down, friend. A note before anybody writes in: I'm not an arborist and I'm not a ranger. If a tree like these is over your house, call an ISA certified arborist. If it's over a campsite in a park or national forest, tell the ranger or the camp host. In a real storm, no spot under trees is safe: get out from under the woods and get in the car. Never try to bring down a hung limb yourself. Sources for what is in this video: NIOSH Alert 95-101 on preventing injuries and deaths of loggers, Purdue University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension on emerald ash borer and dying ash trees, University of Nebraska Extension on summer branch drop, USDA Forest Service on hemlock woolly adelgid, the International Society of Arboriculture.