A 93-year-old western red cedar — 5 feet across and roughly 160 feet tall — taken down to make room for a new horse arena and shop, along with several other large trees on the property.
This was a big one. A 93-year-old western red cedar, about five feet thick at the base and roughly 160 feet tall, standing right where the owners wanted a new horse arena and shop to go. It had to come down — cleanly, and without tearing up the rest of the property.
DirtRaptor handled the whole job: felling and bucking the cedar and several other large trees, hauling out the logs, and grinding and cleaning up the debris so the site was left flat and ready to build on. That reach — arborist-led tree work plus the excavation and haul-off to clear the ground after — is the whole point of running one crew for both.
Project at a glance
- Service
- Tree Removal
- Location
- Stanwood, WA
What the job involved
- Assessed the 93-year-old western red cedar and the other large trees in the way of the new arena and shop
- Felled the cedar, about five feet across and roughly 160 feet tall, and several other large trees
- Bucked the logs into manageable rounds on site
- Hauled out the logs and cleaned up and ground the debris
- Left the site flat and ready to build on
Planning a big tree removal before a build
If trees are standing where a new building, arena or driveway is going, take them out before the excavation starts, not around it. That way the drop zone is open ground, the logs can be bucked and hauled without working around fresh footings, and the stumps come out with the same machines that dig the site.
Trees this size also raise questions worth answering early: whether the wood is worth keeping, how the logs will leave the property, and whether a larger rural removal needs a forest practices application. On rural land around Stanwood, Snohomish County rules usually apply. We sort that out on the site walk.
Planning something similar? See our tree removal in Stanwood page for local ground, permit and timing details, or everything we do in Stanwood.
Questions about jobs like this
Can DirtRaptor remove a tree as big as this cedar?
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Yes. Large Douglas fir and western red cedar removals are what our arborist-led crew does best, and because we also run excavation, the stumps and site prep can happen on the same job.
What happens to the logs from a big removal?
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Your choice. We can haul them away on our own trucks, buck them into firewood rounds, or leave usable logs stacked on site.
