Climbing techniques

[Diesel JD]

Just wondering how all of you guys climb. i will assume if you are either a recreational climber or an arborist, you don't climb with spikes unless th tree is to be removed...so I'm woindering what techniques you do use. When I climbed a few years back I would simply toss a rope through a crotch in the tree and pull myself up. However this seemed not real safe and was extremely hard work, so I never really got far in my climbing.....anyways have a good one.

 

[Buzzlightyear]

Errrm lots of different ways i'm afraid, nearly all using a friction hitch.

 

[Diesel JD]

what's a friction hitch? excuse my ignorance!

 

[Diesel JD]

It's southern slang for a bad marriage.

Dan

LOL.... I know of too many of those thankfully not me...yet I hope never

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

A friction hitch is a knot that you tie from your saddle to the other side of that rope you threw over the limb. It slides on the rope as you advance, and locks off when you let go.

 

[Buzzlightyear]

A friction hitch is a knot that you tie from your saddle to the other side of that rope you threw over the limb. It slides on the rope as you advance, and locks off when you let go.

Hopefully ! Seriousley thought it's such a massive subject you'd probably be better of getting a good book..............try sherril link above

 

[Diesel JD]

yeah any recommendations on which book? I'd like to learn...
J.D.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Sherrill sell The Tree Climbers Companion, that's a great start. It pretty much has everything you need. Around $10 or so.
Tom Dunlop was a contributor, but it's good anyway.

 

[Diesel JD]

Thanks....I think I'll look into that.. sounds like agood read

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Tom Dunlo[a]p was a contributor, but it's good anyway.

Thanks for the chuckle Mike

 

[rebelman]

ladder

put a ladder up it. Be sure to belt in immediately at the top of the ladder. Take a pole saw(preferably with a sixteen foot wooden handle, and place your spreader snap through a sturdy crotch. Pull it to you and tie in. Unbelt and move up the tree taking slack with your tautline hitch(tree trimmers knot). I'm surprised by the lack of sensible responses. Perhaps this is because more arborists than the industry cares to admit use spikes when pruning?

 

[Buzzlightyear]

put a ladder up it. Be sure to belt in immediately at the top of the ladder. Take a pole saw(preferably with a sixteen foot wooden handle, and place your spreader snap through a sturdy crotch. Pull it to you and tie in. Unbelt and move up the tree taking slack with your tautline hitch(tree trimmers knot). I'm surprised by the lack of sensible responses. Perhaps this is because more arborists than the industry cares to admit use spikes when pruning?

I do hope that was a tongue in cheek remark ! I for one have never used spikes on a tree unless it was a take down.........

 

[JimK]

I'm surprised by the lack of sensible responses.

The original posting presented a huge question - how to climb. Where does one begin?

I've always appreciaed the standard warning - go low and slow. However, how much technique should be available on the internet?

By the way, another great book is "Recreational Tree Climbing" by **** Flowers. "On Rope" offers numersou set-ups on climbing.

Regards,
JimK

 

[rebelman]

ladder

A pole hook is actually safer than a saw. Obviously, but a saw can clear suckers for an easier path, and pruning can begin immediately. This relieves potential fatigue. You decide, does the risk of the pole saw falling toward you or a ground person outweigh the quicker and easier aspect? The pole hook is safer. Each situation is different.

 

[Tree Machine]

You're going to get a lot of different perspective here because there are a lot of different methods, techniques and perspectives. Most guys will learn a certain way, they get comfortable and with that and the rest of their career is spent climbing with that method, or various variations of that.

Very few of us are trying every method and technique and hitch and device to find an ultimate system. Those guys are the innovators, though the black sheep in the industry, outside the norm.

You're likely to get information from the norm and become the norm. Nothing at all wrong with that. The tree climbing industry has essentially been climbing trees the same way for over a hundred years. Some things have changed, like manila and hemp to nylon and high molecular weight polyethylene. Saddles have gotten better, more guys use caribiners and slings and there's the BigShot, but climbing technique is still rooted and practiced in the use of the friction hitch. A lot of modifications on it, but a time-tested way of working trees.

Friction hitches are unique to the tree climbing industry. Yes, there are prussiks used all over in other aerial disciplines, but climbing on half inch line using a friction hitch is uniquely us.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Those guys are the innovators, though the black sheep in the industry, outside the norm.

Friction hitches are unique to the tree climbing industry. Yes, there are prussiks used all over in other aerial disciplines, but climbing on half inch line using a friction hitch is uniquely us.

Which is why the pursuit of an SRT system for arbos makes so much sense

 

[Tree Machine]

I must agree with Mr Tom. Breaking out of the old, conventional ways is tough when the old, traditional ways are still taught as the ways of choice, not because they're better, but because they're conventional.

If you tried to teach DbRT or DdRT to a search and rescue crowd, or to cavers or to rock jocks they'd think you were whack.

SRT to the arborist group is slow in coming, but only because we're so attached to our friction hitches. SRT doesn't convert well when using friction hitches, though Tom has mastered the ways and proven it can be done. SRT using devices is pretty much the norm the world over, in all aerial disciplines, but to arbos it's still rather foreign.

I guess it's what makes us unique. I like being able to swing between all three methods interchangably, but single rope technique is by and far what I prefer most.

I'm a Dunlap groupie