For cleaning pine needles off the roof vents, I use a shop-vac with a long hose and an extension wand duct-taped to a 1x3. It's somewhat awkward to use while standing on a ladder, but probably no more so than a rake or broom.

The shop-vac, hose, and a crevice tool are also the least messy method I've found for cleaning gutters.

@davidr Using that method I would need to empty a shop vac about 50 times to clean the roof. We get a LOT of pine needles.

Standing on a ladder with a rake on the end of a 25 foot handle would be unwieldy and more dangerous than walking on the roof. If you are not agile enough to walk on the roof,hire someone.

klem beat me to it. I agree you are proposing to do something dangerous. I've been on ladders, I've had a couple of close calls on ladders, and I know two people who died from ladder falls (one was on an 8' ladder). Ladders are a necessity for some tasks, but what you are proposing to do on one is highly likely to cause a fall sooner of later. Get a professional to risk his neck. If you need any more convincing, here are a couple of facts from the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors:

• According to the World Health Organization, the United States leads the world in ladder deaths. Each year, there are more than 164,000 emergency room-treated injuries and 300 deaths in the U.S. that are caused by falls from ladders.
• Most ladder deaths are from falls of 10 feet or less.

@kudzu9 I agree that ladders are risky. That's one reason I invested in a contractor level Little Giant Ladder. They are bombproof and ultra-stable.

Let's not forget that contractors are also a risk. Half of them claim to have workers compensation insurance and they do not. They get injured on your job and then sue you for their damages. I would rather acknowledge risks and contain them, rather than pass them off to other people entirely.

The question was "Can anyone recommend a roof rake for pine needs that has a telescoping handle?" The answer is no,regardless of ladder involved,I do not recommend standing on it with a 25' rake.

I agree to get the best, most stable ladder one can. But I still think that what the OP is proposing to do is inherently dangerous regardless of how stable the ladder is. I've been up and down ladders lots of times in 40+ years of home ownership, and no matter how safe I think something that I'm doing is, I occasionally get surprised.

Last year one of my neighbors decided to do some work on a ladder when no one else was home. Being cautious, he roped himself to some attachment point, but while climbing the ladder he apparently slipped, the rope got caught around his neck, and he hung himself. It underlined for me that even when one is being really safety conscious, unexpected and even tragic things can happen.

It's not just about ladders. Handling the proposed rake standing on the ground would be equivalent to a circus act. Anyone that has used a paint roller with 10 feet of handle will likely agree that a 25 foot rake isn't workable.

We use roof rakes all the time to clear snow. We get them at Home Depot. The last two we bought were on sale for $15 each. Not sure how they'd work for pine needles.

leaf blower

daisychain01 and gracie01-

The OP stated that he wanted to reach 25’ from the top of a ladder....

Oh, missed that. Our rakes are 15'.

As a friend of mine aways says, nothing good happens on a ladder.................

My experience with pine needles on the roof of my previous house was that a leaf blower was not strong enough and you needed a high pressure stream of water to get them out of the crevices. And you needed to be willing to walk around on a wet roof, which is something I did 20 years ago, but would not consider now.

Has anyone tried a gutter guard that passes water but blocks pine needles from entering the gutter?

westes-

For information on gutter guard type products, use the search function here on GardenWeb: there are extensive threads on this subject.

I take the leaf blower up on the roof and blow the needles off and then rake them up off the ground. Toss some cheap plastic tarps over shrubbery so you don't have pine needles stuck in the yew bushes.

Remove the pine trees!