Climbing skinney trees...

[DeanBrown3D]

Am I reading this right - for trees less than around 15" diameter, and especially smooth trees, you should wrap the safety around a second turn in case you gaff out? Does that also mean that if you climb up a tree that tapers in to narrow, then you should at some point change from a single wrap to a double, and then back to single again when you come down?

Cheers,

Dean

 

[beowulf343]

Personally, I do wrap twice when climbing "skinney trees." On the larger trees it depends on the number of branches. Alot of branches and I don't double wrap(too annoying undoing the two wraps every time you go over a branch.) Very few branches and I will start double wrapping once the diameter gets small enough. I think part of the reason I do this though is I started climbing with a nylon lanyard. After a couple of weeks they are impossible to adjust, so I'd just leave it fully extended and just wrap it as many times as needed for adjustment.

 

[clearance]

I give a wrap when I climb little alders/cottonwoods, not conifers cause they are usually rough. What do you mean change back to single wrap when you come down? Hopefully you are rapelling and not climbing down.

 

[beowulf343]

What do you mean change back to single wrap when you come down? Hopefully you are rapelling and not climbing down.

Ha Ha, good point. Dean must be doing a takedown and is planning to chunk the stem right down to the ground.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Thanks for the replies

I assumed there would be times when you might want to climb down again. And as the truck gets thicker, you would naturally go over to no wrap.

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Ha Ha, good point. Dean must be doing a takedown and is planning to chunk the stem right down to the ground.

Indeed, my friend has 7 very very tall straight locust trees to take down and not much room, and I was hoping he would let me do this one day after I get some experience.

 

[Koa Man]

I don't take a wrap no matter how "skinny" the tree is.

 

[beowulf343]

Koa, how stong are those trees. If you're up that far in something that small, do you ever have to worry about it breaking over?

 

[l2edneck]

hell thats a fat stalk ive seen much worse but usually very strong just try not to wobble much hehe btw how tall ? reclanata?

 

[Koa Man]

How tall? Here is a picture of me on the same tree above the HV lines, which are 40 ft. high. Actually, it was one of the shorter ones we did yesterday, only about 60 ft. and that trunk is an average size trunk for the South Pacific Talls.
I have been on some that I could both my hands around and touch both thumbs and fingers and my hand span is only 7.75 inches. I am not a big guy, I wear size 7 1/2 boots. Coconut trees are pretty strong. It is very seldom that I hesitate to go around the back side of a tall leaner.

The other picture is some of the other trees we did yesterday.

 

[moss]

Woa Koa, that first photo is freaky! My new nightmare, an impossibly tall skinny tree that looks like a potted plant on steroids, hanging over powerlines.

 

[Ekka]

Coconut palms are good, they have a rougher bark with these little ridgey like rings, also your spikes go in easy.

It's those Queen palms and Cubans that SUCK!

Nice pics Koa, I wonder if they have done some succession planting ... you know, something less maintenance to grow up so they can cull them coconuts.

What about installing coconut catchers?

http://www.abc.net.au/newinventors/txt/s1056976.htm

Extract:- In Queensland, the Shire Councils collectively spend in excess of $1 million annually combating this issue. In one Hawaii resort, the de-nutting program costs US$70,000 annually for their 2500 trees.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

You need to double wrap any time there's a chance that you will fall down the spar. Some spars are smooth as a baby's behind and a lanyard just won't grab. Think of a telephone pole, an Aspen, or even a small Ash.
A few times on this site somebody posted a training video of a guy doing an aerial rescue on a telephone pole, and at the end, the rescuer and the dummy fell straight to the ground, lanyard still attached.
Another example is if you have ever seen the logging competitions, where they race up and down a pole. If you watch these guys coming down, they basically control their descent by squeezing the lanyard around the pole. If they just let go of the lanyard, it would be a free fall.
A guy does not want to free fall. The sudden stop at the end can kill you. It's also hard to sell your equipment if it's all covered in blood.

 

[clearance]

You need to double wrap any time there's a chance that you will fall down the spar. Some spars are smooth as a baby's behind and a lanyard just won't grab. Think of a telephone pole, an Aspen, or even a small Ash.
A few times on this site somebody posted a training video of a guy doing an aerial rescue on a telephone pole, and at the end, the rescuer and the dummy fell straight to the ground, lanyard still attached.
Another example is if you have ever seen the logging competitions, where they race up and down a pole. If you watch these guys coming down, they basically control their descent by squeezing the lanyard around the pole. If they just let go of the lanyard, it would be a free fall.
A guy does not want to free fall. The sudden stop at the end can kill you. It's also hard to sell your equipment if it's all covered in blood.

We are talking about climbing with gaffs, if you gaff out with both spurs at the same time, unless you are unconsciuos you will not freefall. Been there a few times, always got a spur back in and stopped, choking the flipline, whatever, instincts take over, slow motion. Never took much of a ride, never put my face into the tree. But yes, on small smooth trees, use a wrap. Yet another safety advantage of using spurs.

 

[Diesel JD]

I'm kind of in Dean Brown's shoes. I'm trying to learn to climb with and without spikes. I may do trees as sidework at some time in teh future, or it may be that it will alwasy only be a hobby. From my experiences playing around with my gaffs, here's what i found. They are pretty easy to use, but its very easy to gaff out. Because I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to damage any good trees I found a couple of small(maybe 4"dbh) water oak and spruce pine snags I was going to cut down anyways and practiced climbing them. I never went over about 8-10' up. i figured a fall from that height, at least I wouldn't die or break every bone in my body, that plus that peat bog in the back yard is great at absorbing shock. I found o=my self constantly hooking out and occaisonally falling to the ground. I was most concerned about dragging my balls against teh spark or jamming an arm or leg in such a way that I broke a bone. Some giuy on here sent me a message saying I could tie a timber hitch around the spar which would catch if I fell. I played with teh idea and it seemed like it would work well in theory, but I never really tried it out in the woods. Just got toobusy with school and work. I wonderd if teh very skinny spars had anything to do with my gaffing out so much, if my gaffs were too short or if my technique just sucked. But when I get back to it, I'll probably be using that timber hitch around my saddle's d-rings along with my lanyard.