Ascent on a blakes hitch

Jem4417 said:
couple new guys at my company who are proficient at climbing on a traditional climbing system Blakes, tautline etc. are having trouble with midair ascents. Was hoping to see if anybody has a proficient system dialed in for ascending on a blakes hitch. I'd want to teach them other styles but cost of gear and available time for training is holding us back. Thanks in advance
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Have them tie the Blake's with a short bridge, one hand on the rope above the hitch, one hand below. Footlock the tail either with both feet or half-hitch around their strong foot, check out the 3 photos (linked below) for how to footlock with a half hitch, easier to learn than full-on footlocking. Lift the toe up when lifting the foot to feed the rope through the half hitch,point the toe down to lock and stand on it.

Grab the rope high above the Blake's, stand up on your footlock (whatever method) use the hand below the hitch to push the hitch up. Repeat the footlock and hitch moving cycle. Your climbers can ascend all day with this technique until they want to learn something more efficient.

Half-hitch footlock:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/naturejournal/albums/72157600049534869

Half hitch lock is clearly not as efficient as a foot ascender but works quite well. You need to hand feed the rope through the half-hitch for the first 3-4 pulls until you have enough tail weight to make it self-tend. Or have someone hold the tail or put some weight on the tail as many have described in other posts for climbing on foot ascenders.

At 59 seconds in this vid you can see the half-hitch lock on my left foot. I'm combining it with a foot ascender but it can be stand-alone leg power without a foot ascender. Put your other foot on top of the foot with the half-hitch lock for two-leg power.


Locking the tail in the video SRT but it's the exact same climbing motion DdRT on a Blake's.
-AJ
 
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If you're trying to go all out minimal I suppose you could use the tail of your CL and fashion up a footlock prusik. Tye a 6 loop prusik (or whatever holds good) with a stopper, then a midline knot and carabiner to your harness. then footlock up, lanyard in and tie up your Blakes setup when you get to where you are going. At least that would be 1:1
 
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There's no reason you can't footlock the tail of a vanilla, old school, no split tail, long-bridge Blake's system, just grab a footlock and tend the knot as you stand. That being said, all the other stuff mentioned is mo betta. If you get this guy to do nothing else, get him to use a split tail and learn to footlock the tail.

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fall_risk said:
There's no reason you can't footlock the tail of a vanilla, old school, no split tail, long-bridge Blake's system, just grab a footlock and tend the knot as you stand. That being said, all the other stuff mentioned is mo betta. If you get this guy to do nothing else, get him to use a split tail and learn to footlock the tail.

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Click to expand...
Foot locking a blakes system actually isnt that bad either. As long as speed and efficiency isn't a factor.
 
I would just like to say, that although many old climbers are stuck in their ways and are happy with them, maybe showing him a more efficient system in person could change his mind.

When my bosses saw me with my RW, CT footie and SAKA, they immediately saw SRT in a new light versus their hitch climber systems ... sometimes they need to see in person how easy and effortless it can be to ascend.

With that being said, I'm often ascending 50+ ft ... not sure what the trees are like where you are
 
im a gear junkie. Started young and always had a couple extra bucks for gear. But for the 28 year old father whose been doing this for two years and doesn't have the 360 bucks to spend on a system of gear that takes ample time to practice and understand, may find an extra long tail for the two blakes hitch system with moss's half hitch footlock technique to get him by for now
 
I recently did an ACRT training and the guys who are very large and don't have upper body strength yet, found a double blakes to be the key to ascending by hip thrust or foot lock.

Then, just by adding one ascender - foot or hand, they used 1/2 as much energy and ascended much more quickly.

It was nice to watch a guy go from "I'm never going to be able to get in that tree" to "wow, I'm in the tree" to "wow, I'm in the tree and I have some energy to play"


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I was testing out the double Blake for a short time the other day with a foot ascender and definitely wish I new this trick when I used to climb traditionally. I have a couple ideas to tweek it, so I'll post back when I get the system dialed in
 
If cost is an issue, consider that you can SRT without extra gear by cinching or base tying your TIP, and using a munter below your hitch if you need to descend. Single up, double down is how I roll most of the time, I feel like I'm being punished if I have to hump more than 20' or so. I think @yoyoman has some videos on low cost and easy transition SRT, I will try and post up at some point. In any case, get knee & foot ascenders, you can't afford not to have them, even if you are still in your twenties, and you can use them SRT and Ddrt.

The other thing that makes my Ddrt life better is extensive use of adjustable friction savers. There is a learning curve, but it is worth it. For starters, use a retrieval ball, link, ring, or shackle, not a knot, and make sure the large ring will pass anytime you put it through a union. A long ascent in a friction saver, rope walking, is a whole different animal from humping.

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My 2c may be worthless to anyone here, being that ya'll are more experienced. I'm a new guy on the tree side of landscaping, but I'm not shy to give my own opinion.

Climbers the heart of many tree businesses, the way I look at it. If you don't have either climbers or some very expensive equipment, you don't have a tree business. Guys to drag brush and chip are everywhere. Climbers aren't. I'm experienced in business, not quite yet, the tree business. But I'll get there. Anyway, coming from a business background, I've always been told you invest in the heart of the company. Everything else will follow.

With that said, comes safety. I've never had a blakes hitch fail. However, if a climbers happier or more comfortable climbing using their own method, let them climb that way. Cost of gear? You can't put a price on someones life. If they need a $300.00 gadget to climb and feel comfortable, so be it. You may replace it every two years, even at that, you can't deny that a climber that's within his comfort zone using this gadget, won't pay that gadget off quickly.

Onto efficient climbing methods, while discussing gadgets. As I stated, I'm a new climber. I paid $280.00 for the Petz'l Zig Zag. Within one day of using it, I can be up in a canopy and doing the limb walk, before you cut pick out your underwear for the day. I say this as a new guy, imagine one of your comfortable climbers on this device.

With that said, I personally don't like putting a price on climbing gear. I say that as a small operation, but I believe even if I had few crews. I'd spend a couple thousand on some gadgets if I knew they were going to pay themselves off and enable a safe, smooth, and productive operation.
 
We had a new guy single up on just a hitch and he took a twenty five foot ride to the ground. That trick is only useful if your very aware of an eye to eyes personality one to one
 
Back to what I originally said available time for training is limited. The guy said he was comfortable doing it. Then he hit the deck. I think just a hitch single line is a bit schetchy and I definitely agree with low and slow but you can't hold somebody's hand through every climb. I feel like learning new systems ends up being something that you have to teach yourself. Or does anybody here dedicate weeks of paid time for non productive(money wise) training?
 
Anytime I introduce something new, I give at least 4 hours of hands on training on a Monday, then ease it in with direct feedback throughout the week, then do a retraining on Friday if necessary. The only way to get people to practice life saving habits is to train, retrain, ground them, or send them on their way to lawn maintenance.


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It is hard to do training when the main objective is to put wood on the ground and you don't get support from supervision/ management.
 
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