Dave, we use climbing spurs (spikes) on the palms if inaccessible with a lift. There's a fungus called Fusarium Blight in the Phoenix palms here and the main way it is spread is from tree to tree is climbing spurs or from chainsaws/Handsaws. After pruning one of these Palms the chainsaws (tools) have to be broken down and disenfected with Clorox or like. Cost to replace one of the specimen phoenix palms can be more than $30,000 so it's high stakes pruning if you are careless and infect someone's tree.