Details of a white pine woods climb

moss

moss

Been here much more than a while
Location
Carlisle, Massachusetts, U.S.

This video shows the details of access, SRT entry and DRT/alternating lanyard technique to climb in the crown of an Eastern White Pine. The slingshot head is on a 10 ft. three section pole and has a sliding Klemheist hitch hold down and a Wichard snap release. The access rope is a 150' length of Tachyon base anchored. The anchor is remotely releasable, once I reached my TIP at approximately 75' I tied in with my lanyard, released the anchor and switched the Tachyon over to DRT to advance in the crown.

On the initial SRT ascent I use a foot ascender on my right foot and a half hitch on my left foot to get fairly efficient two-foot power. This saves me having to carry the additional gear of a HAAS type foot ascender. I use a ZK-2 Rope Wrench for SRT climbing, the tether is designed to be independent of the hitch to make the install simpler and it also allows a quicker changeover from SRT to DRT by simply removing the tether from the system without removing the hitch and Hitchclimber pulley.
-AJ
 
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Beautiful AJ! I could almost smell the pine needles.

Thanks for sharing this experience with us, along with the technique.
 
Hey moss thnaks for sharing . I've been working on a remote released basal anchor. I'm looking for ideas. Your thoughts are much appreciated!
 
Flex Abednego said:
any chance you could do a video of the set up and release of your base anchor?
Click to expand...

Here is some video related to my remote release anchor design, at the time I made the videos I was still experimenting and had not built it as a basal anchor yet. Between the video posted above and the videos posted below you should be able to figure it out. It's probably better that I don't post a definitive instruction video for this, only highly experienced climbers should try this and I can't control who watches.

This was made 3 years ago and is how I currently set my basal anchors for woods rec climbs where I want to be able to reset the anchor after I've accessed the crown SRT:

Here's how it's tied, notice the second time I tie it the bight on the release is nice and long. When I actually use this I make the bite even longer. The tail of the rope from the bight is attached to the other end of the rope that I'm climbing on. To release the climber has to pull up the tail of the rope they ascended on, pull all the slack from the bight through, and then release through two slip knots. So it's really three actions to release: pull out the bight, release the first slip knot, then the second. Additionally I always set it so that at least 6' of the pullout line is lying on the ground so that if a limb fell while I was ascending it wouldn't have any chance to trigger the release. An additional safety factor is that under normal forces (not a tree falling on it) it cannot be released when the climber's weight is on the rope, I have tested this several times, it will not release. To release you have to lanyard in and slack off the main climbing rope.

In the video I first posted both legs of the rope didn't quite reach the ground so I used slings girthed together to create the part of the release that is on the ground. It would be very unwise to set this with the belly of the release line off the ground.

This photo shows how I've set a big bight and the other end of my rope is attached to the tail off the bight. What you can't see in the photo is 6 or so feet of rope on the ground to prevent some kind of impact from above triggering the release. Even if the belly of the rope was off the ground a falling object would have to pull out the bight before it would have a chance to initiate the release. So there is a lot of consideration towards making redundant safety features.

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This is not an anchor I would ever work off of. It is intended to be used for access only when I want to reset my anchor after I reach the crown.
-AJ
 
Here it is again a on a small Coast Redwood. I believe it's tied upside-down to get a nice rope direction up the trunk to the upper anchor limb. I was able to ascend this 90+ foot redwood, release the anchor and then traverse over and climb a large redwood using only a 150' rope and a lanyard.
-AJ

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Just wanna say thanks Moss (AJ) for all these videos (beautiful climb). I've watched them diligently and practiced the knot repeatedly (and even some variations to see why it can't be tied slightly differently), I'll now introduce it into the workplace (when needed).

Thank you.
 
Thanks folks, if these techniques can be of use to you all the better. The main consideration when using the releasable base anchor, besides tying it well and testing before climbing is to leave enough rope in the continuous loop on the ground so that a falling limb can't push on it and tension the release. If I don't have enough rope in the system to accomplish enough slack on the ground I'll chain some slings together and add them in (like I did in the white pine climb video) or use a length of sturdy utility cord.
-AJ
 
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Moss, why were you climbing the tree? Work? If so, what is your job? (Sorry if you explained this part in the video, I watched it without sound.)

And thank you for the releasable anchor tutorial!
 
Bob Bob said:
Very enjoyable and informative video, thank you. Your methods are a lesson to us all. I appreciate the time you spend taking and editing the video(s) to share. If you want to know a secret, your early videos inspired me to start tree climbing to begin with.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the person who inspired my start in tree climbing.
-AJ
 
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