Really twisted tan oak, moderate-to-heavy leaner, growing out of a cut bank and over a client's driveway. It's not a big tree, but big and twisted enough to have to think on some. It grew up into multiple other trees and it's top rested in some big fir-limbs across the road.
I almost went with a coos bay, but needed a degree of control because of its potential to get hung up. As well, this would have been a candidate for slashing down (giving an undercut, but not a face, to the slash first), except for the multiple twists in the trunk, plus odd limb-weight/placement also ruled that out.
So I landed on giving it a very small face cut ~25% in and at a steeper pitch, flush with the wood. This would still allow a steeper, slashing angle from the top/back cut, while giving the tree a chance to push itself slightly further away from me.
There was another slightly larger tan oak on this stretch of driveway with exposed roots, growing out of a cut bank with less severe lean, but more crown/brush to it with no place for the tree to fall. Slashing would have been a guaranteed chair and possibly pulling the bank out and accelerating the erosion. The footing was poor with only one escape route.
What I opted to do was fall it SLOWLY into a larger madrone to hang it up (don't like skinning madrones, especially, or any tree if I don't have to) to free it from the ground instead of the stump.
From the ground I was able to backbar it safely, letting it drop slowly off the stump and securing it in the madrone. With the butt now on the ground, it was pie-time. Tree top ended up back across the road on its stump, and the madrone only lost some small branch-tops.
