Incorporating different mechanical climbing devices

[Burnham]

I have a dear hope that you mostly youngsters (as there are indisputably some old folks here, and out there in the rest of the treeclimbing world, who will know intimately what I mean here)...that you have even a tiny smidgen of appreciation of the revolutionary effects that these mech./hitch and pure on mech. work positioning devices have brought to our working art.

When you compare what is feasible, practical, and safe these days compared to the limitations we old dogs labored under back in the pre-hybrid SRT days...you should perhaps lay down on your bellies and worship the people who had the vision, the genius to make that vision into a piece of hardware, and the business push, to offer those world-changing products to the rest of us working plebes.

I sure do .

 

[Matagorn]

I have a dear hope that you mostly youngsters (as there are indisputably some old folks here, and out there in the rest of the treeclimbing world, who will know intimately what I mean here)...that you have even a tiny smidgen of appreciation of the revolutionary effects that these mech./hitch and pure on mech. work positioning devices have brought to our working art.

When you compare what is feasible, practical, and safe these days compared to the limitations we old dogs labored under back in the pre-hybrid SRT days...you should perhaps lay down on your bellies and worship the people who had the vision, the genius to make that vision into a piece of hardware, and the business push, to offer those world-changing products to the rest of us working plebes.

I sure do .

I spent most of my climbing career hauling myself around on a taunt line hitch. Learned the Blake’s shortly before getting a Zigzag. Night and day. And then discovering srt canopy access. Holy crap! Magic. I appreciate!

 

[Tree09]

Just wait til you learn to move with it, it is awesome. They have videos out there of guys going sideways thru multiple trees, simply using redirects. Ropewalker setups to fly up the rope effortlessly, redirects to let you climb on stuff you shouldn't, and a bunch more.

 

[BOTS]

I use a handled ascender with a non locking revolver on occasion to make a 3 to 1.

Yup, this!

 

[Benjo75]

I've been using the SCAM method recently for making a 3 to 1. I really like it and all you need is one carabiner. I really never need a 3 to 1 but it's nice to know how if you ever need to.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

About the lack of slack tending, the foot ascender takes care of that most of the time.

When I began climbing trees (srt ascent with a chest ascender+hand ascender+foot-loop, drt with hand ascender and knot, never foot locking), I took the slack by hand after each move. That made my arms strong, but it was slow!
I bought a Pantin to try, but it stayed in the bag a long time, because I didn't see how I could use it with my (poor) climbing style.
Then I tried to take the slack of the climb line with it instead of a hand. Much better, but still slow.
Then the bright idea to follow the advice seen on the net : use the power of your legs to push you up the rope, stronger muscles and all that.
Nice, one movement instead of two, no more slack, as the Pantin pulls the rope directly through the main ascender, faster, easier on the body.
In the tree, more often than not, I prefer to have some drag in the main ascender. That doesn't affect much the push up motion by the legs and it's easier to move the rope to an other TIP (which I do continuously). Having the rope falling down through the ascender on its own is a pain when you want to keep a bunch of slack to put your rope on the next crotch. I still have this problem over 80' because the standing part of the rope becomes too heavy for the friction inside the ascenders. ART even put a special button on his Speederjack-3 for this very reason, to lock the rope inside and prevent the sliding back.

 

[Jonny]

I have a dear hope that you mostly youngsters (as there are indisputably some old folks here, and out there in the rest of the treeclimbing world, who will know intimately what I mean here)...that you have even a tiny smidgen of appreciation of the revolutionary effects that these mech./hitch and pure on mech. work positioning devices have brought to our working art.

When you compare what is feasible, practical, and safe these days compared to the limitations we old dogs labored under back in the pre-hybrid SRT days...you should perhaps lay down on your bellies and worship the people who had the vision, the genius to make that vision into a piece of hardware, and the business push, to offer those world-changing products to the rest of us working plebes.

I sure do .

It’s really fascinating, isn’t it?
Just rapidly evolving tools and techniques. Rope Wrench changed everything and then some more bright minds got to tinkering and voila.
Can’t wait to see what the next 10 or 20 years bring.