I love the hitch climber

[treebing]

This is a fun little rig I have been playing around with for the past couple of months. Its a blast. I used it in the Ariel rescue event in St. Louis. Its pretty straight forward.
Take the hitch climber and set up a normal hitch like you would normaly do. Use a sure catching hitch. Instead of clippin it into your harness, Clip it into a big pulley.
Take a shank of rope, put it though the pulley and run the loop down into another hitch climber, thus you have a three to one. Pull the pulley all the way up into the tree as high as it will go and clip into the htich climber with a bridge. Use a micro pulley and a sure catching hitch to control you line. climb like you normally do but with three to one. check out the pictures.

 

[treebing]

i didnt catch the pulleu but its there. here is the way I rig my bottom part of the three to one.

 

[treebing]

here it is in action

 

[treebing]

This is fun to play around with. It is only retrievable if you put it on an SRT system. Or you put a pulley and throwline above the top HC. To crazy I think. It is not dangerous if the top pulley slips, it is a circular system, you just dont go anywhere.

you can also use another line to pull the top HC up the rope. this can be cool because you can pull the top HC part way up the tree and then pantin or footlock it while you are cranking the 3:1 with your arms. cool sensation. This system is not circular so it is crucial the top HC is holding.

When you feel like it, you can bail on your sytem tied below. Or you can switch into the top HC and come straight down the line. here is a pic of it pulled to the top.

 

[treebing]

nother shot

 

[treebing]

here is the first of a couple videos. I dont have the technique yet to splice them all together any ideas of how to do that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi8ZrH10CSI

 

[treebing]

continuing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94nAxX2Mz0s

 

[treebing]

here is going up the tree. not a lot of effort but not really that fast.

a cool thing about this way too is that you can redirect the bottom HC and then decend straight on the bottom system. On these pics I am running it simply over a biner. But you can also run it over a pulley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM4DAWWQkPI

 

[treebing]

it can be faster if you really crank it which is kind of fun too. Mind you this can be done with out Hitch climbers but they make it easier for sure.

 

[Norm_Hall]

That is a nice set up Kevin. Very innovative. Same set up you used in St. Louis at AR, right?

 

[treebing]

In St louis, i ran it up using the access line provided. Using three ropes actually works better than just. but you need a third rope. In st louis, it incorporated 3 ropes, 3 hitch climbers, three prussics, i dont know how many biners, and three pulleys not hitch climbers. I used another pulley on the bottom to run my harness system through, it didnt work out that great, it also puts you a little too far from the system. DMM biners dont fit the HC sadly. You can run a second biner off of the bottom HC. Then run dDRT system from your harness through two biners instead of just one, this provides a little better bend radius.

I actually thought that this rig would be just kind of gimmicky and fun, but I actually kind of find myself wanting an easy way up the tree quite a bit. it is easy to work off of and provides a lot of options. I thought that the ropes would get tangled but not anymore than usual really. I think a swivel on the harness might be nice Being unretrievable is a little disadvantage but it is counteracted by being able to pull yourself up to the top easier. no unclipping necessary, just manage both top hitch and bottom hitch at the same time for decent.
The redirect option is really slick. I think there is a couple of ways that could be made retrievable too.

the bottom dDrt system actually can be very short, or whatever length you need to get out of the tree. shorter trees can be worked the whole thing on the 3:1 and you can just use a bridge.

its actually a 4:1 MA as you are lifting yourself.

 

[chris_girard]

I found that in order to keep my Hitch Climber from rubbing against my friction hitch, I had to connect the working end to the middle hole as you show in your pictures.

Did you find this to be the case with you as well?

 

[treebing]

yeah, and that is why the mickey mouse pulley doesnt seem to work very well. the middle hole moves everything out a little.

 

[Roger_Barnett]

Windows Movie Maker is really easy to use. You can do multiple clips....voice over, music, transitions, fading, titles, and, in this case, rotation.

 

[RogerM]

Thanks Kev,

 

[treebing]

Yeah roger, I think you will really be able to apply this. I could totally put my mom on this setup and she'd cruise up the tree. In the video, starlet is not even hip thrusting, all arms.

 

[treebing]

there are also rigging scenarios that it can be useful in. I came across this on july 3rd, someone wanted me to cut a few branches out of a weed siberian along the fence line so they could blast their fireworks.

The base of the tree turned out to be totally rotted. I figured I could throw my throw line up there and break the branches out instead of climb.

I couldnt break the limbs just me so i set some three to ones and just tried sliding the hitch up the rope, the limb had too much bend and so the pulleys would collide before the limb would break.

hmmm... how do I send a pulley up the rope. then like a flash the hitch climber pulley on my harness reflected in the sun and I knew my solution.

It is a easy way to set a pulley high, the only problem is getting it back down. I think if you were rigging, a hitch tender above the hitch would be okay with a tail running to the ground. You could keep it out of the way enough, and under load its not going to work.

one solution is kind of cool, but tricky. you have to set your hitch in such a way that it only sets if you yank it real hard and kind of flip the rope so it catches. For removal you pull it up slightly to break it and then ease it back down to you. this will take some practice but I think it is the ultimate answer.

 

[No_Bivy]

huckle buck made easy........seems complicated to show neewbie climbers.

 

[treebing]

its not complicated, just gear intensive. If you can tie a friction hitch your all set. you just have to tie two or three of them.

 

[dylanclimbs]

we tried this out on a couple of 80' poplars(after we had finished the work

). Used a single ascender with a loop of webbing for one foot, and a pantin on the other. aside from the fact that we had the line a little too close to the trunk, once you got into a rythymn it was a pretty fast ascent.

pretty good riggins you got there treebing