95% of the trees in my area are Ponderosa Pines, and that's what I climb 95% of the time. I have to deal with pine pitch on my clothes, my tools, all my gear. It is a pain in the butt all right.
Mostly I climb ddrt, and I always use a friction saver over the limb I use for tie-in point. My climbing rope runs through the friction saver as it goes over the limb. That keeps my climb line and split tail mostly free of pitch.
I was using a work-positioning/safety lanyard that adjusted with a prussik, and that was a constant battle against pitch that made the prussik bind and extremely difficult to adjust one-handed. So I replaced that with a wire core lanyard and a mechanical adjust--can't think of the term for that thing at the moment--which is a huge improvement.