The Illusion of Safety: Safe vs. Safer vs. Safer-er

Thanks for posting that. Just so you all know I’m human and not sitting on this self created thrown of self righteous beliefs. I often ascend with only a lanyard then leap frog with my climbing line as a second lanyard. Do I always do it? No. Depends on the tree, the situation and the work to be done aloft. More often than not I’ll set a high tip and ascend on rope but sometimes it’s just quicker to spike up for the removal, all aforementioned factors considered. No I don’t spike pruning.
 
rico said:
Solid post Steve but the point I'm trying to make is that there was a time before chainsaws aloft, SRT, Spiderjacks, etc. It takes unafraid, open minded, creative crazy mofos to push things forward. If certain individuals are willing to take those risks I say good on em'. Just like running a saw in a tree, some are gonna do it well and some not so much. Thats just the way it is. Dudes like you and me are meat and potatoes kind of tree-men and should Never try something like that, but Travor actually is an acrobat so let that boy (and others) boogie. Sure folks are gonna get hurt along the way but were all big boys here.
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I can respect your post rico. I still stand on the same position though. Again, I harbor no ill will to anybody who disagrees with me. It's ok for them to be wrong. Just kidding!!
 
One I will concede to the guidelines of my employee handbook. Dave is clearly correct. horseplay and work mixing shouldn't be accepted

the other one which is my gut reaction is I would much rather watch videos of back flips than tree murders. it is somewhat depressing watching rope wrenches being used as an implement of efficient destruction.. I do appreciate good scenery photos from up high so I Appreciate it regardless.

the other is Sherrill and there relation with travor which I have no comment on because I just don't know anything about it. But whatever the case I don't fault Travor for selling backflips for gear.
 
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rico said:
Wont be the last time I was wrong! Hope all is well with you Steve, and I sincerely hope your getting over that terminal case of "Cornell Separation Anxiety" bro. Just playing. Be safe out there buddy.
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Thanks man. Exiting things coming this month!! I get my rig soon. You take care as well.
 
treebing said:
One I will concede to the guidelines of my employee handbook. Dave is clearly correct. horseplay and work mixing shouldn't be accepted

the other one which is my gut reaction is I would much rather watch videos of back flips than tree murders. it is somewhat depressing watching rope wrenches being used as an implement of efficient destruction.. I do appreciate good scenery photos from up high so I Appreciate it regardless.

the other is Sherrill and there relation with travor which I have no comment on because I just don't know anything about it. But whatever the case I don't fault Travor for selling backflips for gear.
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No man Don't concede. I'm enjoying your viewpoint. Agreed on the videos. Agree with your stance on the sponsorship. Thanks Kevin. Enjoyed it a lot. Still friends? xoxox
 
Spurs and flip line isn’t still a standard in logging operations? I’m not all that old but I can remember having three points of contact was enough for getting up in the tree. I used a lanyard only for a long time dragging my climbing line with me. Now it’s pretty much depending on the tree and work to be performed.
 
Steve Connally said:
Now the pipe in hand thing slipped under my radar. That’s enough to yank a sponsorship in my opinion for sure. Got Phelps kicked off the Olympic team at one point I believe. The mere appearance of drug use in conjunction with tree work is unacceptable. DO it on your own time privately.
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I saw it on something he was sharing, I'm not sure he was sponsored at the time or anything, as I didn't know he was until this thread. And he wasn't at work he was at a house hanging by himself doing some sort of post. I feel a little guilty I mentioned that as I smoke pot in my own time. I feel a little like I kicked dirt on his name by mentioning it which was not exactly what I meant to do
 
Steve Connally said:
Hate is a strong word. Not the appropriate context for this conversation
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Agreed, hate is a strong word. Hater is just a slang term for people who choose to criticize instead of create. I'm not suggesting that you hate me or I hate you, it's just a turn of phrase. We're all brothers here!
 
Warning Rant.
Please bare with me and thoughtfully consider
# 1 Lack of sleep from
babies,
pain from injury,
depression,
anxiety,
disease of all sorts
Hang-over
Poor diet
H2O deficient
Financial Stress the list goes on and on
Makes for poor decision making.
I am almost always tied in twice and when transitioning or bypassing limbs etc the third goes on.
One tie in is never enough. for me anyways
Over the yrs most climbers that have died/fell out of a tree, have had only one tie in.
Every ones experience is different, my sharing/safety policing comes from survival, surviving some serious shit and wishing the young, inexperienced, climbers with out mentor ship will have a long, safe and pain free career.
In southern Ontario we see young and old climbers injured. From what I hear and see, it amounts to approximately 5 - 10 new companies poping up in the yellow pages every year. I have had to finish jobs where the climber was injured and couple who died, jobs unfinished due to lack of experience, jobs where the HO has removed the crew cause shit got smashed. Training companies here partnered with retailers like Sherrilltree train individuals, sell them gear and send them out to do work with out proper supervision and then look for donations to cover the injuries of said trainees. Very corrupt and dishonest. You ahven't earned the right to kill a tree if you don't know how to care for one. IMHO.
I keep my mouth shout quite often but in certain cases/individuals I feel the need to police for what ever the reason.
I have earned the right to be the law because in this fuckin bullshit industry the powers that be are more interested in profit than growing a true profession.
A profession that allows climbers and trees to grow old. This Country was built on cutting trees down at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives. Whens it going to stop? How much profit/blood do these corporations need.
I don't recommend to anyone to get into the industry. You have to love the work. Most of you know this already and in your hearts wish things were different.

Enough people haven't died or not the right ones?

in the same vein/vain. We hit another piece of steel in a tree Thursday. My apprentice was cutting and i was on the ropes and could sense shit was going south. Pulled him away and see small lump of metal on the ground. there was enough metal mb to spin the tree and crush him. There is so much that can go wrong and kill.
Its up to us seasoned veterans to point out the wrongs and when we see them, encourage the good.
Standards need to be raised. right? Be diligent

Happy Sunday
 
rico said:
Hey Frax . Its sad that some of these old school, highly effective, proven techniques are being lost to the younger climbers. Just as the youngster have much to offer us older folks, the younger climbers could really benefit from some the old school wisdom. I apologize but it would be silly and irresponsible for me to try and explain it to you in words. See if you can't find any vids online. If not let me know and I will make a short vid showing this very simple technique.
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Intriguing. I looked around some but I'm not finding anything that shows how to transfer a single lanyard around a limb in a way that's better than just holding on with one hand.
I assume in the logging biz, limbs are simply cut off when reached since there are probably no targets below, and no issue, but I'm an arborist and limbs can't always be let fly when ascending. I'm not judging loggers for accepting a single tie in when cutting. Not my profession, and not my business.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a complete wuss. A spruce for example, I'll free climb that like a ladder if possible and tie in at the top.
I'm thinking about a long trunk with few internodes where the two spikes and one hand on a limb possibly thicker than I can grip properly is what's holding me on the tree. I imagine a situation where the lanyard gets caught before I can throw it all the way around and there I am trying to free a stuck lanyard from some obstacle at 70', not tied in. (Yes, that's how my brain works when I contemplate something I think is iffy business).
But I'm keen to see how people who only use one lanyard and no rope do it, in case I'm ever in that situation for some reason.

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Frax, you pass a limb by keeping it on the clip side of your flipline. I clip on my left so I would keep a limb to be passed on my left also. Climb up to the limb and then a little more until you can easily reach over the top. Reach over with your right hand and grab the flipline while unclipping with your left hand. Bring the snap over the top and re-clip in. You never have to re-swing your flipline.

I have removed hundreds of trees like that in the past, it works. We did the best with what we knew at the time and I no longer do that.
 
rico said:
Thanks for handling that DSM. A perfect explanation and much better than I could have done.
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Thanks. That is well explained. A grip on the lanyard is better than a grip on the tree. I can't believe I didn't think of that.
I'll still never plan to climb that way, but you never know what kind of situation one might find themselves in.
That reminds me of one time early in my career where I did just about everything wrong. I was about 20' up and not tied in on my rope. I threw my lanyard around and grabbed it, but it was too short, before I could assess my stupidity, I lost my footing and slid down the trunk a few feet until I landed in a crotch. There's no way my hand was letting go!

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Problem is most times there Is more than on limb, there's a whorl. In the end you are relying on one safety.
Personally I am not comfortable doing that.
And regarding an apprentice I prefer to see two all the time. Obviously it's not necessary all the time, some times the tree is ladder like Frax has explained. Still it's safer do have two all the time
 
Just for the record guys, when I referred to climbing with "just spikes and a lanyard", I meant dragging a climbing line up with me as well. I was just referring to not always taking the time to set the climbing line with a throwball so that you could be belayed on the way up. Someone had said to me that spurring up a peg with just a lanyard and not an overhead tie-in was "not safe", which I disagreed with, which is where the example came from for the original article.

I will, quite often, set a line up top before I get going, but sometimes I will just use my climb line as a second lanyard, just to get up to the top to get tied in.
 
Muggs said:
Just for the record guys, when I referred to climbing with "just spikes and a lanyard", I meant dragging a climbing line up with me as well.
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I agree, that's in no way unsafe. A rope already around the stem acting like a second lanyard plus a lanyard is solid. It's the only practical way of doing a spruce removal if you're going to skin the branches on the way up. Setting a climbing line would be a pain in the butt and it would probably have to be a base tie, which when skinning up a spruce or a tree like it, actually less safe.


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Nora, if you are working your way up a conifer or other straight tree with a base-tie, you can use a spare biner to your bridge ring clipped on the down-strand. This will be pulling the rope away from all the collars, rather that the down-strand being frequently in the way at the collars.
 
southsoundtree said:
Nora, if you are working your way up a conifer or other straight tree with a base-tie, you can use a spare biner to your bridge ring clipped on the down-strand. This will be pulling the rope away from all the collars, rather that the down-strand being frequently in the way at the collars.
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That is just a handy positioning trick in general.
 
Nice tip, clip the anchor leg, filed away.
All this discussion about online representation caused me to think about how humans are often blind to the long-term implications of technologies that are irresistibly clever, like social media. Or the interaction of technologies like Twitter and a fancy array of conveniently modern nuclear weapons.
Are we using the internet as safely as we could?
 
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