DdRT? Rookie needs help.

[AdkSJ]

Sometime over the summer i located a sketch of a 'motion lanyard' set up, i believe drawn by Moss. It depicted one rope, with two working ends, slack between the legs, using two blakes hitches, tied from two split tails, for ascent and descent. It's a very simple design, but looks to be very effective. Am i mistaken, or is this DdRT?

Also, I am now beginning to purchase my own gear (apparently my brother wants his back). I was looking at investing in a 70ft length of Yale Blaze (11mm) and was wondering if the split tails should be same size or smaller? would and 8mm split tail be sufficient?

My experience consists of mostly small tree free climbing, and a great deal of SRT, and i want to take advantage of this set-up's mobility and saftey.

 

[moss]

I did that sketch when I was brand new to climbing almost 6 years ago. I was trying to figure out what this "motion lanyard" was that Richard Preston wrote about in a Feb. 24, 2005 New Yorker article on tall tree researchers in the PNW. That article grew into the book "The Wild Trees" published by Random House a couple of years later.

The motion lanyard is a double-ended adjustable friction hitch lanyard. Most work climbers use a single ended adjustable lanyard, typically in the 15-20' length range.

The motion lanyard as described by Preston was used by some tree researchers in Coast Redwood climbs. They ascend up into the trees, typically a 150' single rope ascent (SRT) and then switch over to a 60' double ended DdRT lanyard to progress once they're in the crown of the tree. The ends of the lanyard are alternately placed over lombs as the climber works up (see alt lanyard climbing in Jepson)

For the purposes of learning how to climb recreationally it's a good idea to purchase a 120 or 150' arborist rope and learn DdRT (or DRT, same thing) on that. There's a good video available on the Tree Climbing International website which goes over all the basics (gear, technique, tree assessment, safety protocol etc.) around learning to climb safely on a DRT system, I think it's called "Tree Climbing Basics". Also pick up Jepson's Tree Climber's Companion

I think you'll get frustrated with a 70' rope real fast but there's no harm in trying to climb on it. No need to use a split tail, tie a Blake's Hitch with the tail of the same rope. Split tail diameter depends on how you're going to implement the split tail. If you're going to tie a Blake's you want the same diameter rope as the climbing rope, you can buy short 11mm pieces by the foot from Wesspur. The other type of split tail is an "eye-to-eye", both ends of the split tail are anchored on a carabiner attached to your harness, typical hitches used for eye-2-eye split tails are Distel, Knut, Schwabisch, VT and on and on. 8mm rated prusik cord is best for e-2-e on 11mm Blaze. It's tough to learn how to climb from the ground on an e-2-e without coaching from an experienced climber. Most climbers who do so use a Pantin or similar foot ascender (CMI) to climb an e-2-e split tail.
-AJ

 

[AdkSJ]

Thanks

That Wild Tree's is one of the reasons I got into climbing, and likewise one of the reasons i was so interested in that sketch. Thank you for the advice, i'll be sure to check out the video.

-SJ