Jamin slays the dragon

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  • #26
These trees are amongst the biggest in town but are not the biggest. If we had had more time I would have taken Jamin to see one considerably larger -----------the longer you look at it the bigger it gets! About 11 feet DBH as I recall.
 
Here's a giant cottonwood I worked on a few years ago. I was told that it's supposed to be the 4th largest in the state but I'm not sure.
 

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The Branch Doctor said:
Here's a giant cottonwood I worked on a few years ago. I was told that it's supposed to be the 4th largest in the state but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
Oh yes they get extremely plump about the mid section if they don't have to reach the sky for sunlight .

I'll take a picture tomorrow of the one in my woods that had to get above the average 90 plus tree height to reach the light .
 
workin now. heres a couple cotton wood we did 6-8 years ago. not quite the size justin and jamin's but still punkins
 

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  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #37
Nice pics Willie.

Doc, That was definitely a large tree. It might be 4th in Co of a particular subspecies but I can think of 6 bigger Cottonwoods within Canon City...and those are just ones I've looked at or worked on. There are some monsters out there for sure.
 
You can't tell much by these pics but this one is over a 100 feet . Because it was grown in competition for sunlight the canopy is different than those other cottonwoods . It's around 5 foot at the base and splits about 15 feet up into two .
 

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I mentioned this over at TB, so this may be redundant for some. But, I thought I would show the technique I used to ascend the beast.

FWIW. My ascent was a combination of a SRT with DRT. I used 1/2" static KMIII anchored to the tree with a porty. This was groundsman ready to rescue me if necessary (during the ascent). --The rest. Well, I was on my own... I used the Kong with a Petzl micro grab for a back up. Attached below the Kong was the Rock Exotica swivel pulley, which my friction hitch was in. This gave me the advantage to descend, if I needed to and/or work on my way up, if I wanted to.

The photo shows the same set up from a different climb earlier last year, but you will notice the Blaze rope instead of a static line...
 

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It makes it easy for the groundsman to rescue a climber if there is a need to do so. In fact, I had to be rescued once in the past. I was a matter of my friction hitch. It somehow got fully inverted when I was working off if it. It would not grab. So, I had to hold on to my rope, sit into a foot lock, and tell him to lower me to the ground.

It is also good for a possible bee attack. :O
 
Please forgive my ignorance.

SO, you are going up a double line, but one side is tied to the base and you are usning SRT to asscend. You get up, there is a problem, all you have to do is de-attach,if you even are, from the the base tied line, and they can lower you from the ground? About right?
So you are just tying the "tied end" lower for better accesability for others?
 
CurSedVoyce said:
Its a good way for the groundie to get you down in case of a problem.
Click to expand...

I understand that Stephan, just trying to understand how. Remeber, I just learned the BASICS of DRT a couple of years ago!!! Think STUPID GREEN when discussing these things with me!!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #46
Andy, In this case we had the tail of Jamin's ascent line secured onto a Port-a-wrap(lots of friction devices could be used from a simple figure eight to things like a GriGri or Petzl I'd) If the tail beyond the anchoring device is long enough then "unlocking" the tail will allow a person on the ground to feed line and lower the climber or anything else on the "ascent side" of the line.

I set a line in the second tree while Jamin was working the first one--I could have waited until he was ready for me to pull his ascent line and run it into the second tree but leaving it in place-at least while he was on that side of the tree added an option for me to ascend and help him in the extremely unlikely event that he got into trouble and was unable to descend on his own. At 150' my static lines weren't long enough to reach from the ground to the TIP and back let alone permit rescue from the ground so I tied one to the other leaving the knot on the anchor side and a clean run for Jamin on the ascent side. the crotch was pretty open so it probably would have passed the knot with a load on the rope had lowering Jamin been necessary (there was plety of run to drop him out a bee swarm even if the knot had stuck) but bending two lines together is NOT ideal for this sort of thing. I was inadequately prepared rope wise for this job. I need to pick up a minimum 200 foot rigging line in case I get into one of these scenarios again-my 175 got cut and, while I have never actually NEEDED more than 150' in the past ten years my 150s were inadequate on this job-Actually the last three lowerings the 150 was just enough but on the dead topped central leader I had to lower part way, tie off on the porty, tie another line above the porty with a friction hitch,untie the tail from the poty and lower the last 40 feet. There are always ways to "use what you have" but that isn't ideal.
 
Stumper said:
Andy, In this case we had the tail of Jamin's ascent line secured onto a Port-a-wrap-lots of friction devices could be used froma simple figure eight to things like a GriGri or Petzl I'd- if the tail beyond the anchoring device is long enough then "unlocking" the tail will allow a person on the ground to feed line and lower the climber or anything else on the "ascent side" of the line.
Click to expand...

Thank you, what I was thinking, just wanted to clarify!
 
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