The Problem With Tip Tying

murphy4trees

TreeHouser
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Nov 28, 2008
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Philadelphia PA suburbs
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It's so important to analyze every mistake, no matter how minor and learn from it. That's a huge safety factor and one of the best things about video. It allows us to review exactly what happened, often in slow motion. I've watched a lot of your videos and have been mightily impressed at how fast you developed as a climber, faller, rigger. That said, I would invite you to change your attitude. You dismiss your mistakes regularly, losing valuable opportunities to learn and improve.

We all make mistakes. I curse mine and feel so bad about even the little ones, then review them over and over until some way to make sure it doesn't happen again becomes clear.

There was zero reason to tip the limb at 5:24. That monster walnut limb you tip tied in the "near death" video helicoptered around the tree and came 6" away from killing you, 100% DEAD! What did you learn from that? Apparently not!!! If you had but tied the piece at 5:24, it would have swung down and away. There was plenty of room. So why did you tip tie it? That's the question you need to ask yourself if you are going to learn anything here.

It was clearly close enough to scare the other climber. You could hear it in his voice when he called for the goundie to let the piece run. That's a helpless feeling. Then when he was trying to say so in a nice way, rather than apologize and try to learn from it , you just laughed, justified it, and dismissed his concern for safety. While there are no physical consequences to that near miss, there are definitely mental consequences.

It's like a groundie that stands just a little too close to the drop zone. He may in fact be safe, but if the you have to think about it, for even a second before making the cut, it throws your concentration off. Now Brian's fight or flight response has been triggered and he's thinking about you, should he be up there with you?, is he safe? what will you do next?... Perhaps all very subtle thoughts in the back of his mind, but enough to throw off his concentration
 
This is Human right? The guy that fell out of the tree (and filmed it)

Is he a member or something? You seem to be addressing him directly.
 
He joined here for a short while. Posted a few times. But yes he’s referring to the “human” guy.
Found him. Rlfailuer
 
True, no need to tip tie that limb but the main problem was all the ground guy/poor rope skills, not the tip tie.
 
I'll be happy if I never have to use a ground man for roping ever again. Been doing all my own rigging for so many years I've almost forgotten how to rope a limb down the old fashioned way.
 
Maybe if its a brushy piece and you're trying to fit it into a small LZ and on into the chipper chute. But yeah nah
 
I wouldn’t say never do it. It definitely has a place. I prefer to be closer to balancing. Slightly heavy one way or the other still achieves the same goal but works so much smoother and most certainly looks way cooler. Not that it mattered in that video but it also makes the ground mans job easier when needing to position the piece before completely setting it down
 
In a tight landing zone. It's a pain in the butt when a wide topped piece has to be tugged on and cut by 3 people to get it un tuck from laying on its top and safely down in a position that both fits in the landing zone and is convenient to move out of the LZ.
 
I prefer to use it when there are multiple tops that aren’t wide spread. Piece can come down vertically with the butt first. Ground crew can then just walk it out. A lot of times they will hook the winch line to it and float it to the chipper. I won’t do it with a log though unless I have a real high rigging point, low on the stem being removed, and a good ropeman. I’m also lucky since both of my crew members have become wizards on the rope.
What he did in the video was just plain careless. Way to much risk having a second climber in that tree and even worse that he was below him.
 
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  • #21
Didn't notice until the post went up that the caps Lock had been on and I was in a hurry so I went with the flow.. Who knows.. maybe those caps will save someone's life. ;)
 
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I prefer to use it when there are multiple tops that aren’t wide spread. Piece can come down vertically with the butt first. Ground crew can then just walk it out. A lot of times they will hook the winch line to it and float it to the chipper. I won’t do it with a log though unless I have a real high rigging point, low on the stem being removed, and a good ropeman. I’m also lucky since both of my crew members have become wizards on the rope.
What he did in the video was just plain careless. Way to much risk having a second climber in that tree and even worse that he was below him.

This. And we do a lot of logs as well.
 
Daniel, is the 2nd climber in training? I got nothing to back this up except impression and gut feeling, but he seems green. Like he didn't know better and his trainer put him in the line of fire. He should not have been in that spot.

I really liked the one video he did when he helped out the little old lady that got swindled by a hack.
 
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  • #25
True, no need to tip tie that limb but the main problem was all the ground guy/poor rope skills, not the tip tie.

The poor rope skill was a given. Human announced at the beginning of the video that it was a new guy on the ropes.. having to rely on the ground guy's skills to keep the climber safe is a sign of poor rigging skills... first and foremost ... there was no reason to put the other climber in danger no matter what the groudie did... There were a lot of options there... simply but tying it was the simplest and most common sense solution...


Poor ground skills (not letting it run at all) probably saved Human's life on the "near death" video

Where does it have its place?

When there is no clearance for the tips and you don't want to bother lifting it...

But goes down, tips go up..

I was taking a 40" white oak down the same day that asplundh showed up to clear the wires, so I worked from the driveway while they worked from the street... They left a big high limb out a good ways over the wires... They were actually a lot closer to the limb than I was, but still left it..

I originally planned to set a ring up as high and as far out as I could reach, and then cut just past that.. Even with 35-40' of clearance, it looked like it was going to be close.. Probably would have cleared, but too close to take a chance, so I used a pole saw to reach out and tip tie it, then came down and cut it low enough to ensure it was but heavy.. Swung it a little to the side with the notch and as soon as it let go, the tips swung up and back away from the wires. Probably 25+' clearance.
 
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