Unpopular opinion: spider lifts are overrated for pruning work

Had my spider lift break down 40 feet up last Tuesday in Portland. Couldn't get down for 45 minutes. Give me a good harness and climbing spikes any day over relying on machines that fail.

2 comments

2 Comments

rose_cooper11d ago

Oh man, that happened to my buddy Dave last spring! He was stuck up a cherry tree in his spider lift for almost an hour, had a crowd of neighbors watching him try to figure out the manual override. He sold that machine two weeks later and went straight back to climbing.

mark_thomas11d ago

Honestly, I get why he went back to climbing, but a spider lift is a game changer when you need to reach branches you just can't get to safely with a harness and spikes. Dave sounds like he just had a bad run with that specific machine, not that the tool itself is useless.