Ridley Creek Gets No-Cost Tree Work Through Advanced Climber School

A 2,200-pound dying tree limb hung over a century-old mansion. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

It might have been, if a group of arboriculturalists from around the country hadn't removed the dangerous limb at Ridley Creek State Park over the weekend, at no cost.

The Advanced Climber School brought together a group of experienced tree care experts with relative newcomers looking to learn more about climbing and working with cranes. The  so-called students ascended the trees in turns, guided by veterans in the trees and assisted by "The Crane Man" Peter Nieves-Sosa on the ground.

The final project of the three-day "school" experience was a red oak just outside the courtyard of the Hunting Hill Mansion at the park. The tree was dying of an insect-related disease called bacterial leaf scorch, and had to be completely removed.

Climbers from Kentucky and Mississippi joined local students, using a chain saw to take down segments of the tree, all under the watchful eye of safety experts like Gene McMillen, of Shreiner Tree Care in King of Prussia.

The school experience was only the second of its kind in the country.

McMillen, president of the Pennsylvania-Delaware chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, said he had learned his trade at Ridley Creek years earlier. He said a job like the red oak removal would have cost around $3,000 normally, but that everyone involved was volunteering time and equipment to help out the park and the industry.