Customer Spotlight: The Chef Who Drops 100-Foot Trees
Aaron Stump trained as a classical French chef in Portland, Oregon. He spent close to a decade cooking aboard a freelance research ship that worked all the way up the Bering Strait into the Chukchi and Arctic oceans. He has surfed 36-foot waves and ridden helicopters onto belching volcanoes to set up seismometer stations and pull gas samples.
These days he runs a regenerative land business in central Oregon, and the tool he reaches for most on a tree job is a portable winch that fits in his backpack.
Toledo, Then Everywhere Else
"My name's Aaron Stump. I was born in Toledo, Ohio," he says. "I got out of there as quick as I could after I graduated high school and went west."
What followed reads like three careers stacked on top of each other. He trained as a classical French chef in Portland, and the cooking took him around the world — a year living in New Zealand, time in Haiti and Samoa, studying in Australia and Austria. Then came the research ship, and close to a decade of feeding scientists in some of the coldest working water on earth.
Somewhere in there, the passion for food turned into a passion for the systems underneath it: water cycle restoration, permaculture, agroforestry. That became his business, Stump Regeneration.
Two Acres in Three Rivers, Oregon
"Right now I'm on a two-acre property in Three Rivers, Oregon," Aaron says. "We're knocking back the dead forest. We're taking out the dead trees and building some of these hügelkultur beds on their property." The idea is in-place composting — putting the forest back into the ground it came out of, instead of hauling it away.
The work takes real equipment. Aaron runs four different chainsaws, plus a rigging kit of snatch straps, carabiners, soft shackles, and come-alongs.
"The come-along that I've been using, it's the Dragan Systems Pocket Winch. It's good for 2,000 lb and it's just a little over a pound. So to be able to throw this thing into a backpack and have this kind of power at my disposal is amazing."
Can You Use a Portable Winch for Tree Felling?
Yes. A portable winch is used in tree work to apply steady directional tension to a leaning or dead tree so it falls where the cutter intends, rather than where gravity decides. The winch holds tension on a line anchored to the tree while the cutter completes the back cut, then pulls the tree over along the planned path. Because a compact winch can be carried in a pack and rigged in minutes, it can be repositioned between cuts without hauling heavy equipment across a property.
Arborists also use portable winches for secondary rigging tasks: tensioning zip lines to carry cut limbs clear of a drop zone, skidding cut sections toward a chipper or mill, and pulling hung-up trees free of neighboring canopy.
Dragan Pocket Winch Specifications
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Pulling capacity | 1 ton (2,000 lbs) |
| Winch unit weight | Under 1 lb |
| Packed kit weight | 1.5 lbs (winch, line, Capio and Doubler) |
| Power source | Manual — no battery or vehicle power required |
| Mounting | None required — anchors to trees, vehicles or ground anchors |
Felling Is a Control Problem, Not a Power Problem
Dropping a dead tree next to a fence line and a stand of living plants isn't about brute force. It's about deciding exactly where the tree goes and making sure it goes there.
Aaron's sequence is methodical: line up the aim, cut the open face, make a plunge cut, set a wedge on each side. Then tension comes onto the Pocket Winch. As he takes the back strap off, the winch pulls the rest.
"Tree's going that way," he tells the person on the handle. "You got something to hide behind if you need to run."
Zip-Lining Limbs Out of the Drop Zone
The more unusual application came from a problem every arborist knows: what's underneath the tree.
Rather than cutting limbs and hoping they landed clean, Aaron used the Pocket Winch to rig zip lines — flying cut branches out and away from the plants below and the fence line, under control, one at a time.
The Rigging Kit Behind the Work
A winch on its own doesn't rig a tree. Aaron's setup pairs the winch with anchoring and line-management hardware:
- Dragan Slings — heavy-duty webbing runners for wrapping anchor trees without damaging bark.
- Dragan Doubler — doubles the line back to increase mechanical advantage on heavier pulls.
- 100' Line — reach for anchoring well outside the drop zone, which matters when the fall path is long.
- Dragan Capio — controlled load management and let-out when tension needs to come off mid-pull.
Why It Earned a Spot in the Kit
- It packs: serious pulling power that lives in a backpack alongside the saws and rigging, instead of as a separate load.
- It's controllable under load: tension on, tension off, mid-pull, without drama.
- It's disproportionately strong: "Super light, super effective, and amazingly strong for how tiny it is."
"Everything we needed it to do. Enough power, consistency, smoothness. We were able to unload it when we needed to change our directions. Love this thing, man."
Sixty Feet Up, Still Chasing It
Aaron describes himself as a longtime adrenaline junkie — rock climber, mountain biker, whitewater rafter, telemark skier, snowboarder. The grip strength for rock climbing is gone now. The height isn't.
"The views that you get when you're 60 ft up in a tree tied off and feeling safe. Oh man, it's good."
And the felling is only part of what he's building. Aaron teaches — a home handyman class and a carpentry class — and he's working toward stitching the whole chain together, from tree felling to milling to carpentry, with artists collaborating along the way. "Those are the things that really make my soul sing."
It's a long way from a galley in the Arctic. The tool that ties it together fits in a pack.
Frequently Asked Questions
What size winch do you need to pull over a tree?
The force required depends on the tree's lean, height, and diameter, not just its weight, because a winch line anchored high on the trunk works with leverage. Many arborists working residential-scale timber use a pulling system rated around one ton, and increase effective force with a pulley to double the line rather than by carrying a larger winch.
Can a come-along be used for tree felling?
A come-along applies the same principle — ratcheting tension on a line — and is widely used for felling assistance. The practical differences are weight, packability, and how smoothly load can be released. A traditional steel come-along is heavy enough that it often stays in the truck; the Dragan Pocket Winch weighs under a pound on its own and 1.5 lbs as a complete packed kit, so it goes to the tree.
How do you keep cut limbs from damaging what's below?
Rig a zip line. Tension a line from the work point to a distant anchor, attach each cut limb before releasing it, and let it travel down the line clear of the drop zone. This is standard practice over fences, gardens, structures, and irrigation.
What else is a portable winch used for?
Beyond tree work, common uses include vehicle and ATV recovery, pulling fence posts, moving fallen logs off trails, skidding timber to a mill, and general property maintenance. See enduro racer Nick Wood's backcountry recovery setup for a motorcycle-focused example.
Ready to put one in your pack? Shop the Dragan Pocket Winch Complete Kit here
The Dragan Pocket Winch was named Overland Travel Safety Product of the Year by the Outdoor Innovation Awards.
