Gecko spurs, spike length question

treewill said:
Practice makes perfect, but if you are going into the woods to get better at spur climbing please select only dead trees to practice on.
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Here we go. I knew it was coming!! I'm just an old logger/removal climber, but could someone answer me this. How is it that you guys can trim, top, vista prune, pollard, ect, leaving open wounds everywhere, but somehow a gaff wound kills entire forests and is a leading cause of global warming. And no, I didn't vote for Trump and global warming is Very Real!
 
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erik smith said:
Here we go. I knew it was coming!! I'm just an old logger/removal climber, but could someone answer me this. How is it that you guys can trim, top, vista prune, pollard, ect, leaving open wounds everywhere, but somehow a gaff wound kills entire forests and is a leading cause of global warming. And no, I didn't vote for Trump and global warming is Very Real!
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Personally I follow best practices because they are the best practices.
 
erik smith said:
Not really sure how that answers my question.
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Most of what you listed is not best practices. He avoided a long post explainging that.

The short answer is that you can't prune a tree without creating wounds, unfortunately. You can, however, only create the wounds that have to be there to accomplish your work. You'd survive going to the doctor to have an arm amputated whether he broke any of your toes or not. Probably.
 
moss said:
I'm loving my Climb Rights since I attached them directly to an old pair of climbing boots, problem solved. If I get tired of those I'll take a look at the Antec Axess, thx!
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Are those holding up?
I can't say that I'm not interested in the concept.
 
SomethingWitty said:
Most of what you listed is not best practices. He avoided a long post explainging that.

The short answer is that you can't prune a tree without creating wounds, unfortunately. You can, however, only create the wounds that have to be there to accomplish your work. You'd survive going to the doctor to have an arm amputated whether he broke any of your toes or not. Probably.
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Good answer, but I still aint buying it. I realize it about the health of the trees, but how many working climbers actually clean all their cutting tools everyday, let alone between trees? I personally clean my gaffs with alcohol everyday before I strap them on, so I don't spread disease in my forest. In my trees even long gaffs don't do anymore than penetrate the bark until I am well up the tree. The original poster doesn't do removals frequently enough to ever get really comfy in spurs, and I don't see how spurring up a few tree in the woods is really gonna hurt anything.
 
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erik smith said:
Good answer, but I still aint buying it. How many working climbers actually clean all their cutting tools everyday, let alone between trees? I personally clean my gaffs with alcohol everyday before I strap them on, so I don't spread disease in my forest. In my trees even long gaffs don't do anymore than penetrate the bark until I am well up the tree. The original poster doesn't do removals frequently enough to ever get really comfy in spurs, and I don't see how spurring up a few tree in the woods is really gonna hurt anything.
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I do a lot of removals. Anywhere from one almost every week to nothing but slaying all week long. I just don't often wear spurs.

You're right, honestly. It won't hurt anything to go beat up some trees in the woods. Especially around here where we are 60-70 years after our last major logging and the forest is far too thick with trunks and just doesn't look like a mature forest again yet.
You mentioned work practices and "how bad could it really be?". I didn't have a comment about in the woods.
At work, I will prune at the top of my ability every time that I am able.
If I can't or it's just too much at the end of the day or for whatever reason, I'll come back when I can do a job that I will be proud of.
 
moss said:
I'm loving my Climb Rights since I attached them directly to an old pair of climbing boots, problem solved. If I get tired of those I'll take a look at the Antec Axess, thx!
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This is a good example of how, often a spur problem is in fact a boot/spur problem. Something that just changing the spurs alone may not fix.
 
SomethingWitty said:
Are those holding up?
I can't say that I'm not interested in the concept.
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They're excellent, very nimble, effective. I think unifying the spur to a boot is the future.
-AJ

Edit: Funny thing is I've figured out they're best barefoot in the boot. Like my favorite Boston Bruins back in the day, Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr, and others, legend had it they got the best fit in their skates no socks ;-)
 
erik smith said:
Good answer, but I still aint buying it.
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Erik, buddy... you gotta cut us some slack! Those trees where you live... they don't make spurs long enough to get through the bark on those, do they? Yeah, I've only ever seen one tree die (a few years after) from being spurred to death. It was a little 8" birch or aspen with bark as thin as the homeowner's skin. He bought an old lineman's belt and a buckstrap, and would spur up and down that thing to prune it... cut a branch, come back down and look at the tree, go back up and cut another branch... gawd, it was so funny my sides hurt for a week from laughing at this clown. It eventually had so many strips of bark missing and carpenter ants, borers, bark beetles and who knows what else living in it that it died.

But... I figure spurs on a tree when you don't need to do it is still probably not doing it any good, and I think that's the main reason it's frowned upon. If I think it's safer, I'll spur the bastard. But the no-spurs approach does sharpen the climbing skills, too. And, I hate climbing in spurs on the elms and cottonwoods around here. You can practically walk around in the tree, with some of them, they're so spread out.

You live in the land of the real giants. I've never climbed a tree over 90' in my life. There probably aren't more than a dozen trees in this state that are taller than that!
 
I apologize for sounding like an grumpy old Turd! I was just trying to point out that the original poster needs to get a lot more spur time to start feeling comfortable, and that going out in the woods and spurring up a few trees wasn't really gonna do any harm. I also knew I was gonna get some grief from the "arborists" as soon as I recommended it, so I figured I give you guys some shit. I need to learn how to play well with others!
 
JeffGu said:
Erik, buddy... you gotta cut us some slack! Those trees where you live... they don't make spurs long enough to get through the bark on those, do they? Yeah, I've only ever seen one tree die (a few years after) from being spurred to death. It was a little 8" birch or aspen with bark as thin as the homeowner's skin. He bought an old lineman's belt and a buckstrap, and would spur up and down that thing to prune it... cut a branch, come back down and look at the tree, go back up and cut another branch... gawd, it was so funny my sides hurt for a week from laughing at this clown. It eventually had so many strips of bark missing and carpenter ants, borers, bark beetles and who knows what else living in it that it died.

But... I figure spurs on a tree when you don't need to do it is still probably not doing it any good, and I think that's the main reason it's frowned upon. If I think it's safer, I'll spur the bastard. But the no-spurs approach does sharpen the climbing skills, too. And, I hate climbing in spurs on the elms and cottonwoods around here. You can practically walk around in the tree, with some of them, they're so spread out.

You live in the land of the real giants. I've never climbed a tree over 90' in my life. There probably aren't more than a dozen trees in this state that are taller than that!
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Really? I had no idea. The concept of a short cottonwood is a strange one to me.
 
SomethingWitty said:
The concept of a short cottonwood is a strange one to me.
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Well, I guess there's quite a lot that are over 90' along the riverbeds... but most of the civilized, city dweller ones aren't that big. There were two in a park here, that got over 100' but they got hit by lightning so often they just got shorter and shorter until all the bark sluffed off and they died.
 
JeffGu said:
Well, I guess there's quite a lot that are over 90' along the riverbeds... but most of the civilized, city dweller ones aren't that big. There were two in a park here, that got over 100' but they got hit by lightning so often they just got shorter and shorter until all the bark sluffed off and they died.
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There's a town here named Dardanelle that has like a dozen state champions.
I feel like it is probably because some folks there like putting big trees on those lists... (the Arkansas champion dawn redwood is less than 60 feet tall...) anyway, the champion cottonwood is like 135' and broadly decurrent.
Seems I see ones that must be 120+ everywhere that is near one of our larger rivers.
I have never climbed in those. Just looked up at them while I fish.
 
moss said:
They're excellent, very nimble, effective. I think unifying the spur to a boot is the future.
-AJ

Edit: Funny thing is I've figured out they're best barefoot in the boot. Like my favorite Boston Bruins back in the day, Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr, and others, legend had it they got the best fit in their skates no socks ;-)
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That is cool.
Have you thought about a way that isn't duct tape? Everything that has crossed my mind involves something stabbing into your ankle...
 
erik smith said:
You will love the DMM's! Sounds like you need to spend a lot more time climbing in spurs before you will become comfortable with them. If you can, go out in the woods whenever possible and spurs up a bunch off trees.
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Day and night. Got my DMM geckos in.
The euro gaffs are amazing. You just step up and as soon as you put pressure on it, it bites in towards the trunk hard.
I am excited to check out the long ones and see if I am just in love with the euros or if I've never tried a good set of climbers before.
I spent all day in a bushy red oak takedown and kind of played with them and positioning on them every time I had a moment.
The only thing that I don't like is the new difficulty when limb walking... the wide stirrup makes a large part of my foot super slick, and the euros are high enough that there is no slightly cocking your foot to get some purchase. Gotta step off center and sideways to bite in.
 
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