Tree felling vids

Lotta times I’ll just run a flipline Garry. Just the way I was taught, and I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. Not the safest show in town neither.

Ohhh! I DO have my line hanging down in the back though. You can JUST see it.
 
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Idk, one is none and two is one, type of thing.

Mistakes happen. Steel core lanyards can be cut through.

I just like to stack the deck in my favor as much as reasonably possible.

We all know treework isn't, for the most part, rocket surgery. I think it is mostly a question of going up there, do all the basics and don't do something stupid . Don't. Do. Something. Stupid .

You obviously are very highly skilled and with a lot of experience. But chit happens. Look at PC tree, guy is basically a genius, I heard he fell by rapelling off the end of his rope. Chit happens.
 
It was HERE that I learned the TIT principle....I climbed in a vacuum for 20 years. I learned in the early 70's, manila 3 strand, freeclimb (no lanyard use) until you either get too scared or have to get past a big limb or obstacle. THEN put the lanyard around the tree. Get to a limb, hold on with one hand, unsnap the lanyard, reposition it while holding on with one hand, then climb on. That's the way I was taught in early 70's...and what I did until the 90's when the internet (and TreeHouse) let me meet other climbers who had their shat together. I learned how stupid I had been all that time...too dumb to figure it out on my own. Managed to gaff my own right thigh at the knee (from a lanyardless fall from about 15 feet approx. 1972), break my right wrist from another fall from about 20 feet (about 73 or 74), and got scared several other times. The House saved me I am sure.
 
Wait, he's (PC Tree) O.k. right!!!?? Isn't that Roger? As to falling off the end of yer rope... Heck... Mr. Beranek's done it twice, and once from a potentially lethal height. Limped his way out of the woods. That's a man, imho. Whereas, all of us silly old farts seem unable to make up our minds. I just got done wading through the excellent "Old Age and Climbing Thread," over in the climbing forum, and I simply could not believe all the silly bravado regarding suicide. But on the other hand we are training redundancy regarding safety in treework. Two points of tie-in on a stick just seem excessive to me, and I'll leave it at that. If I'm honest I AM a little butt hurt over all the corporate, collective, bandwagoning tendencies in our industry: "Two points of tie-in!!... Better than One!!" To that I would simply respond, "Three, Three, THREE!!! Far better, than two!!! Don't be a silly cowboy jackass! FOUR! Oh, no wait, don't be silly. Four is for fags, and three is kind of effeminate. I think that two would be a good, prudent responsible number. :lol:
 
Don't be a fool, Jed. Use two lanyards when cutting with a chainsaw.

Sure, there's over the top safety mavens a'plenty who will sing the praises of top rope safeties, and much more besides.

But please hear this old, old climber, descended from your own PNW genetic tree climber base: don't get stuck in the oldest of old school paradigms, where we were taught to think anything beyond a flipline and a good pair of spurs was a stupid waste of time.

That way of looking at climber safety comes from the many decades gone now perception that a logger's life was not worth much...certainly not worth enough to take any effort at protecting. Save a few minutes?? Sure, and if every now and then that uneducated, has to work under whatever situation the bossman says he must, hard working man dies...too bad for him and his family, but by the gods, the company made some money still.

I beg to differ.

Go with two lanyards, or a lanyard and a top rope (hate that latter choice myself unless I have to go up to the top for some other reason beyond just the rope placement...whatever:)). But by hook or crook, keep yourself safe.
 
Slowly.

Doesn’t bother me, I live in France, plus I wouldn’t do it even if I lived in the UK.
Lot of guys working for bigger firms or on public works have no choice.
 
It’s three in the UK now when cutting, two tie in points when moving around the tree.

I kid you not.
Wow.

Butch: I appreciate you older brothers. Won't be disregarded, I promise.

Burnham: Thank you very much for actually hammering out a very thoughtful response. I will think a great deal about what you say. I just don't see how one, steel-core, double locking snap (I used to saw those off and replace it with a triple-locking biner, but I got away from it) could ever fail. I think that I just psycologically have a hard time with redundancy. Just feels like so much dead-weight, ya know?

Anyways, I'll think a lot about it, and maybe mend my ways, who knows. I just don't see it though. There's just so very, very many ways to get it in this world ya know? And then we all get it in the end anyway... ahhhh, I dunno, man. I've just never, ever met anyone either who even KNOWS about some guy who got it and coulda been saved if he had had more than a steel-core. Sean acts like he has, but I guarantee ya he hasn't.
 
Cut lanyard



Cut lanyard or climb line with no backup.





Jed, you are far more experienced than i will ever be, and are going to do what you want. When i was an apprentice steamfitter, we had an ironworker come and talk to our class, he had fallen and it messed him up severely, like legs popped out of pelvis and somehow lived bad. He said he had not tied off while making an incredibly easy move (how things were done honestly up to a couple years ago in construction), lost his grip and fell. We're talking about climbing a ladder easy, but something went wrong and his life was never the same again. He made a good point, which was even tho some safety shit is annoying as hell to use, and likely not needed, all it takes is one time and you could be done. If the couple of seconds it takes to clip in seems too slow, think about how slow it feels when you are lying in a hospital bed with your legs in traction, tube up your dick and shitting out of a hole in your hip, if you are lucky. While crude, it was an effective message to me. He added that this work is dangerous enough, all you can do is stack the odds in your favor. Everytime you tie off or do something for safety, you are simply stacking the deck.
 
Post of the year by 09 :thumbup:

Also, Jed, Sir Reg made a vid about the way he ties the double locking snap to the cover of his steel core lanyard because the steel cores have been know to break from wear and tear/bending/metal fatigue.

Jed, you sir, appear to be loved.

With all respect, God seems to have made a concerted effort to modify your climbing style by causing several members here to recommend changes.

 
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Thanks for Reg's video link. I had not seen that...he makes a good case for backing up a lanyard snap. My first lanyards were single action...no "backstrap" safety. Several times I remember seeing a rigging line come across my lap when the groundie was pulling the end up to me...and hearing the rope open my lanyard snap. Looking down and seeing that snap open is mind-blowing. I remember being glad I was leaning back and had weight on the snap...a bit of leaning forward to interject slack into the lanyard could have been very bad. I loved it when double action snaps came available. This leather lineman's belt is what I first used in treework...awful. The rope lanyard is what I "upgraded" to for a lanyard. old tree gear  (3).JPG old tree gear  (4).JPG old tree gear  (3).JPG old tree gear  (4).JPG old tree gear  (2).JPG old tree gear  (1).JPG
 
Love that manufacture date. And that gnarly old 3 strand buckstrap with non lockers, been there done that!!

I never had a problem with non locking though we all now understand murphy's law is a real thing.
 
What do you all use for a second tie in? So far, I only use a single, with another lanyard as backup when I need to unclip for some reason, but only one is in action at any point. I've contemplated a second tie in, but wasn't sure exactly how to go about it.
 
Both lanyards side by side? If so, that seems to complicate things without adding much to the safety factor. It would help protect against gear failure I guess, but something like a saw cut would likely get both lanyards. I was trying to work something out that would kind of trail below me at a fixed distance(knee height?), and wouldn't be a PITA to manage. Dunno...
 
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