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Hatchets and axes are nearly useless when clearing large deadfall in my experience. Used to carry a smaller Gerber camp axe but stopped doing that pretty quickly when it never got used. Large plastic felling wedges and understanding/visualizing the forces involved in a log will get you much further with ground or leaning trees. Don't cut wood that is in compression.
 
Hatchets and axes are nearly useless when clearing large deadfall in my experience. Used to carry a smaller Gerber camp axe but stopped doing that pretty quickly when it never got used. Large plastic felling wedges and understanding/visualizing the forces involved in a log will get you much further with ground or leaning trees. Don't cut wood that is in compression.
Beg to differ.

They are quite useful. Mostly just for driving in those large wedges you refer to. But I've also used it to extract my saw which was pinched quite hard.

Understanding the forces is the single most important skill in cutting, but that's a skill you can really only develop over years of practice.

I wish I could limit cuts to wood that isn't in compression, but I don't have a lot of control over whether there is compression on the trees that fall on the trail (or for me lately those in the path of the trail we are building). The best I can do is try and relieve the compression elsewhere first, but sidewinders and complex stresses on can be hard to avoid when you have a lot of downed trees.
 
So I got that 18" Gerber hatchet and it's A+. We were clearing some pretty good sized logs... well big for me anyhow, they were bigger than the 25" bar on my saw and my blade got stuck... several times actually. I was doing my certification and I've honestly never had much issue with blades getting bound, but Sunday my blade got stuck hard 2-3 times. Don't have a ton of pictures, but this was the first one.

I wound up using the hatchet to pound in wedges to get the saw out the first time. The second one (not pictured) wasn't as deep, but had a crazy twist and the wedges didn't really help so I ended up just chopping the wood out on both sides of the blade until it was freed up.

It's perhaps a bit on the light side for pounding in wedges, but when you are carrying it half a mile in and out, it's always a bit of a compromise. The Gerber is just about the perfect size to fit into my old school HAWG Camelbak along with a couple cans of fuel, my wedges, and a few other odds and ends.

View attachment 1932103
why not just recut your cuts?
 
They are quite useful. Mostly just for driving in those large wedges you refer to.
I'll carry a rogue hoe vs an axe (for tree related trail repairs) or pick up a piece of wood/rock from the forest if sans rogue hoe to drive wedges. Don't usually need to drive wedges much to get them to do their job; a little more than hand tight for most situations like keeping a kerf open. Usually only need to drive them home if I've already gotten myself into a bad situation (ie stuck bar). I'll sometimes carry an extra bar and chain if cutting a lot of nasty wood (ie blowdown situations). Felling trees is a different story though; assuming we're talking about clearing leaning and mostly fallen trees here.

It's good practice to cut off as much limb weight from horizontal trees to reduce internal forces before starting to buck them (which it seems like you're doing). Cut off any accessible hanging limbs, especially ones that will cause axial twist, and concentrate on getting the tree to rest on the ground over a good portion of it's length first. This can be difficult if there are many tangled together which may be better left to a professional at that point.

The compression force I'm referring to is what causes pinched bars. There will always be compression and tension in a log that is not: 1) in a perfectly vertical and balanced position or 2) resting on ground that is equally supporting it's weight. In the axial direction, tension is pulling the wood fibers apart and compression pushes them together. The stresses are greatest along the outer most diameter of a log in the plane of bending. The tension wood will be in the convex side of a bend (start cut here) and compression wood in the concave side (pinch bar here).

Plunge cutting the middle of a log exploits this stress distribution as the inner wood isn't under much stress and most of it can be removed without causing the tree to break. However, this will cause a tree to react more quickly when cutting the leftover sections of wood if stresses are high. Twisting failures and ultra stuck bars are also likely if the plane of bending is misread during plunge cuts. I'll use plunge cuts occasionally when I want a tree to break quickly, like when needing to free it from a "stuck in canopy" situation, or sometimes during felling. I don't use plunge cuts much for bucking though because I like to see the wood moving during the cut and have time to react to it.
 
This is our current project. Lots of steep side-slope, big wood. Haven't been up there since June due to fire restrictions, but the next one waiting for me is probably a 30" log on a similar slope.



Even if I wanted to leave the hatchet at home (I don't), I would bring it regardless because it's part of the gear we are required to bring with us to work on forest service land.
 
I didn't read through all the answers but I have cut a good number of tress that size with my 40v gmax 16" a new or newly sharpened chain is a must before tackling tress of that size as that will kill your batteries way faster. Anyways my backup thats with me all the time while doing trail work is the silky katana boy 500. Man I can tell you that the silky has paid for itself so many times over and I have cut some very large trees with it as well. It is always with me to save me if for some reason the chainsaw gets stuck. I also use it on smaller stuff as it usually one swipe back to cut branches around 2" in diameter. There has been many days where I choose it over the chainsaw.

After thought: BTW Have put a solid year on my katanboy and it still rips through the wood. I do have a spare blade and a file I have yet to use for it as well.
 
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