jomoco
Tree Freak
About a month ago I was doing some fairly serious speedlining and getting a bit frustrated at having to leave my way out there lateral position on a major leader to retrieve my speedline after each limb or piece of wood was sent down to the LZ successfully.
Being an older climber that's somewhat of an othopedic wreck, I am always whining to myself that there must be an easier less physically demanding to go about my job, and retrieving that line was gettin old big time!
That's when the idea of a passive lowering line retrieval leash hit me as a very sneaky, but potentially dangerous new saddle component that would be slicker than snot to use to alleviate my senior citizen woes in the treetops.
That very day at lunch I cut the metal tape out of my spencers rotary spring powered logging tape, and respooled it with nylon throwbag line with a simple large thumb snap dogleash connector on the end.
After lunch with my new invention attached to the left side of my climbing saddle I went back up to give my new invention a whirl. It worked pretty much flawlessly until I exceeded it's total length on the fourth piece speedlined, the line I could fit on the spool was about 25 feet, and the fourth piece was about 30 feet away from where the main speedline came to rest as it was tightened as the piece went down, this tore the nylon line off the spencer tape spool on my leftside, giving me a little tug before breaking.
I'm convinced that this retractable dog leash, along with two carabiners would work well in situation when you are less than 20 feet from the lowering/speed line's point of support and it's lateral distance from you.
http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?FamilyID=12616
It will work well within those parameters in my opinion.
And for any of you that don't understand eactly what I've described here, it's probably best that you don't try this new technique of mine, It has the potential of being very dangerous if you don't understand exactly how it works, and how to put a weak link in it to ensure it only breaks itself if it fails for any reason.
It really is cool to be able to rig my pieces as usual, but the very last thing I do before making my cut is snapping my line retrieval tool above onto the speed/lowering line above the target piece, knowing that when I make the cut the leash will go out like line on a fishing reel from my leftside until it stops at center of support and the piece is on the ground safely and the piece untied from it and slack is given in the line, at which point I can pull the leash line and retrieve the main line without having to move even once from my cutting point out laterally in the tree!
So what say you guys who rope down trees for a living?
Does my tool strike you as dangerous and lazy?
Or slicker than snot if used properly within the tool's usable range?
Tear me up here boys!
jomoco
Being an older climber that's somewhat of an othopedic wreck, I am always whining to myself that there must be an easier less physically demanding to go about my job, and retrieving that line was gettin old big time!
That's when the idea of a passive lowering line retrieval leash hit me as a very sneaky, but potentially dangerous new saddle component that would be slicker than snot to use to alleviate my senior citizen woes in the treetops.
That very day at lunch I cut the metal tape out of my spencers rotary spring powered logging tape, and respooled it with nylon throwbag line with a simple large thumb snap dogleash connector on the end.
After lunch with my new invention attached to the left side of my climbing saddle I went back up to give my new invention a whirl. It worked pretty much flawlessly until I exceeded it's total length on the fourth piece speedlined, the line I could fit on the spool was about 25 feet, and the fourth piece was about 30 feet away from where the main speedline came to rest as it was tightened as the piece went down, this tore the nylon line off the spencer tape spool on my leftside, giving me a little tug before breaking.
I'm convinced that this retractable dog leash, along with two carabiners would work well in situation when you are less than 20 feet from the lowering/speed line's point of support and it's lateral distance from you.
http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?FamilyID=12616
It will work well within those parameters in my opinion.
And for any of you that don't understand eactly what I've described here, it's probably best that you don't try this new technique of mine, It has the potential of being very dangerous if you don't understand exactly how it works, and how to put a weak link in it to ensure it only breaks itself if it fails for any reason.
It really is cool to be able to rig my pieces as usual, but the very last thing I do before making my cut is snapping my line retrieval tool above onto the speed/lowering line above the target piece, knowing that when I make the cut the leash will go out like line on a fishing reel from my leftside until it stops at center of support and the piece is on the ground safely and the piece untied from it and slack is given in the line, at which point I can pull the leash line and retrieve the main line without having to move even once from my cutting point out laterally in the tree!
So what say you guys who rope down trees for a living?
Does my tool strike you as dangerous and lazy?
Or slicker than snot if used properly within the tool's usable range?
Tear me up here boys!
jomoco
