climbing injury

One of our climbers was decending this winter from a nice size oak. He was smoking the hitch something firce, not paying attention, and the stopper knot saved him from hitting the ground. His rope stopped about fifteen feet up. Funny thing is that I exited the tree I was working about ten minutes before. For some reason when I was checking on his progerss I threw a stopperknot in the tail. I guess in his case timing was everything. I wish our fallen climber a speedy and healthy recovery.
 
years back at a TCC in Duluth MN, Boone was smokin through the masters. He came screamin down and everyone but Boone noticed he was going to run out of rope 20'up. The crowd starts yelling at him to stop -- he's going What? -- 5' from the end of his knotless rope he figured out what the fuss was about, thank god he stopped -- climbed up and retied. exciting TCC.
not as scary as Mark's redwood story though
 
Look down as you descend, simple as that. I've had a stopper knot get tangled in a crotch before while working. Can't hurt if you know it's out of you ropes reach. It would suck to have to head back up from that knot anyway, you'd better get in the habit of looking down!
 
stopper knot at the end, no doubt. a broken leg or even your life isn't worth several minutes to untangle the knot through branches. Take the time, there's no rush.

jp
 
I always use enough rope (re-directs included) to make it back to the ground safely. What about bees or raccoons or a bleeding arm, etc. A friend broke his arm about 30' up a few years back. Luckily, he had a clear path and enough rope to allow a descent without having to re-tie. This same friend slid off the end of his rope from about 8' last year. Landed on both feet but strained his back. He was removing epicormics on the way down and wasn't paying attention to the rope. On the rare occasion I don't have enough length to complete the climb, I plan out the location of the re-tie before I leave the ground.
 
Just yesterday we almost had a young guy come off his rope , when one crew guy yelled at him to stop, saved him from a 30ft fall.. He got a ear full from his boss ...

Let's stop and think .. Later in SO-CAL
 
Comin' f*ck up. Pay attention, your climbing! Don't breath a sigh of relief till your on the ground. Next we will be saying "carry a cell phone in case you get stuck". Wake up and smell the nylon burning. Dang Jimmy!
 
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