Uncontrolled pendulum swing

[Dave1960_Gorge]

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I made the very same mistake two years ago, at 40-50ft up, and twice as far out a limb - chose an unsafe branch stub to tie into, rather than getting the lanyard under the main limb I was reducing, and the dynamic movement of taking the tip popped my lanyard off and sent me swinging all the way back to the trunk, 200t flailing in one hand. Got away with only a scrape on the elbow, but it could have been so much worse.

I strongly second Old CB’s comment about staying “in the zone” while in the tree. There is absolutely no room to be elsewhere mentally. It’s one of my favorite things about climbing, actually - it forces me to let everything else go. Time compresses on itself, there is no past, just the present. The future extends only as far as the next few chess moves in my pre planned match against the tree.

Also, a polesaw is your friend in these situations. In this particular case, with a small limb so close to the ground, you could have easily flung a running bowline around it towards the tip, and safely removed the branch from the ground, saving yourself the limb walk altogether...

Appreciate the comment. I was also training a new ground guy—- first day on the job for him. There was even some humor— once I was on the ground he asked if I meant to do that!

A couple more thoughts about safety:

After my uncontrolled pendulum experience, I quickly switched to incorporating a simple lowering/rescue redundancy into my primary basal anchor, whenever possible. Petzl Rig makes it pretty idiot proof, but a little portawrap or even a friction hitch can work just fine. Never have had to use it, and hope I never do, but the thought of dangling broken and unconscious from a rope, unable to get myself down to medical assistance is terrifying enough to hedge against.

I’ve also become a bit obsessive about cleaning up any and all sharp branch stubs in my vicinity before removing any dynamic pieces. As I regained my composure in the moments after my big swing, the good luck for which I found myself most profoundly grateful was having missed a spear-like broken branch less than a meter from my point of impact with the trunk. Would have skewered me like a grotesque human shrimp.

I am now considering incorporating a rescue component as well. In the last 18 months, I have not had another climber on my crew. Don’t remember the exact name for the system, but there is one that is tied into the single line at the ground and if you get in trouble, the single live is cut and you are lowered to the ground with rope from a rescue bag.
I also remember a system with which the single line is set up through a pulley and tied off (with a prusik and biner?) so that you can release the single line under tension and lower the climber.

Of course, these set ups only work if the climber is on the single line and has a clear path to the ground.
I am with you in removing stubs! Especially on ponderosa pine; I use a hand saw and cut all these petrified little rippers off anywhere nearby .

 

[Walkdog]

I’ve used all three techniques shown in this video:

 

[pdqdl]

I have a much simpler method of ground anchor, and it is more reliable than any of those.

Put a bunch of wraps around the tree trunk, at least 4. Tie the tail off to the standing end with two half hitches or whatever knot you like best.
At that point, the wraps on the tree alone are holding all the friction, and the tie-off is just insurance against any creeping. Any groundie can untie the simple holding knot, and then begin unwinding the wraps until the climbers weight manages to overcome the friction and he can easily be easily and controlably lowered using the entire tree as the port-a-wrap.

I know lots of old timers remember using wraps on a tree to provide the necessary friction for lowering large branches, long before the introduction of porta-wrap or other friction devices. The only drawbacks were that "wrapping the tree" was far too slow to use repeatedly during a large takedown, and really heavy loads could scar the trunk. Not good for the tree.
My anchor method is fundamentally the same, but a climber will never be heavy enough to rope-burn a tree and no amount of groundie panic/stupidity can cause the climber to fall uncontrollably except for perhap cutting the anchor rope with a chainsaw.

I am particularly not fond of the last method in the video, as it is pretty pointless to rely on a groundie reliably using a prussic for final control of lowering an injured climber when he must untie a porta-wrap before the prussic can be used. Too many safeties are likely to lead to confusion and accidents, and a porta-wrap is a far better friction device to lower a load than a prussic loop.

 

[Dave1960_Gorge]

The method you describe would work, but I would be willing to bet ANSI would require some sort of hands free fail safe to stop the rope, like a prussik or Petzl slack tender.

 

[pdqdl]

Sometimes I don't even tie it off. I just toss the rope on the ground, 'cause it isn't going to creep with that many wraps.

In the final analysis, all friction/belay devices are the last thing holding the loaded rope. If the belay point fails at the final grip on the rope, the climber falls. With my method, there is no fail point anywhere except the rope itself.

 

[Dave1960_Gorge]

Sometimes I don't even tie it off. I just toss the rope on the ground, 'cause it isn't going to creep with that many wraps.

In the final analysis, all friction/belay devices are the last thing holding the loaded rope. If the belay point fails at the final grip on the rope, the climber falls. With my method, there is no fail point anywhere except the rope itself.

I suppose you could tie a clove hitch after the last wrap; could probably untie that if need be.

I also started out townhouse clove hitches before I switched to the cow hitch with a steel biner at the end. Lost a big chunk of locust out of a loose clove hitch once, and I was sure I broke the concrete driveway. Must have been poured right; didn’t crack.

 

[pdqdl]

I seldom use clove hitch except to send stuff up a rope to the climber. Same for cow hitch. When you have 4+ wraps on a tree, the closure knot becomes almost irrelevant, as the friction alone prevents any rope movement.

How to lower logs by rope while wrapping around a tree used to be the big talent of a good groundie many years ago. They would know how many wraps were needed on a tree so as to allow some slippage, yet maintain control. Different trees had different holding capacity, some were slick, some were the opposite. Unskilled groundies put too many wraps on, and then yanked the falling log to a snapped stop. Really unqualified groundies lost control and crashed the log into whatever was below, sometimes being yanked off their feet or going for a ride on account of having tied themselves in to the rising line.

The same is true for today, only that skill is limited to a faster-to-use, and more predictable port-a-wrap. I'm sure that many folks on this site still don't use them, but they might yet learn what they are missing out on.

 

[pdqdl]

I suppose you could tie a clove hitch after the last wrap; could probably untie that if need be.

I also started out townhouse clove hitches before I switched to the cow hitch with a steel biner at the end. Lost a big chunk of locust out of a loose clove hitch once, and I was sure I broke the concrete driveway. Must have been poured right; didn’t crack.

What is a townhouse clove hitch?

 

[Dave1960_Gorge]

Tying

spellchecker !

 

[rarefish383]

I have a much simpler method of ground anchor, and it is more reliable than any of those.

Put a bunch of wraps around the tree trunk, at least 4. Tie the tail off to the standing end with two half hitches or whatever knot you like best.
At that point, the wraps on the tree alone are holding all the friction, and the tie-off is just insurance against any creeping. Any groundie can untie the simple holding knot, and then begin unwinding the wraps until the climbers weight manages to overcome the friction and he can easily be easily and controlably lowered using the entire tree as the port-a-wrap.

I know lots of old timers remember using wraps on a tree to provide the necessary friction for lowering large branches, long before the introduction of porta-wrap or other friction devices. The only drawbacks were that "wrapping the tree" was far too slow to use repeatedly during a large takedown, and really heavy loads could scar the trunk. Not good for the tree.
My anchor method is fundamentally the same, but a climber will never be heavy enough to rope-burn a tree and no amount of groundie panic/stupidity can cause the climber to fall uncontrollably except for perhap cutting the anchor rope with a chainsaw.

I am particularly not fond of the last method in the video, as it is pretty pointless to rely on a groundie reliably using a prussic for final control of lowering an injured climber when he must untie a porta-wrap before the prussic can be used. Too many safeties are likely to lead to confusion and accidents, and a porta-wrap is a far better friction device to lower a load than a prussic loop.

I'm 65 and grew up with wraps on the trunk. That damn 3/4" bull line was a killer taking three wraps. I got a great climber to help me out on the occasional side job. When he pulled out the port-a-wrap, I started to fight it. He laughed and told me to just try it once. Once did it, I'm converted.

 

[jsoukup]

How did you make out with OSHA? I remember reading a story a few months back, a farmer fell off his barn and died. Michigan OSHA basically fined his estate $12k. https://www.agdaily.com/insights/perspective-death-osha-fine-nature-modern-farming/