Lightest/Most Comact Climbing Set Up

[Handy2]

Hey all,
I'm traveling home from college for the holidays and will be getting around by bike. I figured I'd lighten up my system as much as possible so I can travel with it and get in a good bit of rec climbing while I'm there. I have a standard Treemotion, and for sure will be bringing my 110' of Blue Moon with a spliced eye and a Rope Runner. Any ideas on how to superlight a system for times like this?

Also, I'm thinking of setting up a totally separate super light travel system sometime in the future (TM is neither light nor compact). Anyone have any experience with this? What saddle and gear would you use, either for DRT or SRT? It still needs to be somewhat comfortable to hang in, but would only expected to be used for rec climbing and need to follow the ANSI guidelines (except for maybe rope diameter?). I usually opt to bike places instead of driving, and it would be cool to have a system that could be carried around easily, instead of lugging around 40+ pounds of gear or just giving up and putting it all in my car.

 

[rope-a-dope]

New tribe has some lighter rec saddles to look at. Their leg pad design is very low bulk but supportive.

 

[Tuebor]

Super light? Rope and a carabiner. You're young...footlock up on a Blake's hitch. A friction saver would help. So would a foot ascender. An eye & eye hitch and a hitch climber pulley is a compact package to replace the Blake's. A rock climbing harness would be cheap and light but not too comfortable. Rec harness from New Tribe would be a step up.

 

[Reach]

In my opinion, it is hard to find a tree saddle lighter and more of a minimalist design than a Petzl, for sure worth checking out. Of course some of the rock climbing harnesses are far lighter, but they’re no fun to sit in for too long.

As for gear beyond that, I think a hitch climber setup is about as simple and light as it gets, pair that with a Petzl foot ascender for a very light accessory if you wish.

 

[Jonny]

I never thought the original TM was overly heavy. I was kinda surprised how light it was once I took everything off of it.

 

[Hosocat]

Not trying to hijack handys op, but I have a similar question. I like to take a short lanyard and a long lanyard in the tree. For the long lanyard I'm thinking of building the lightest, most compact dr t system I can, so that I can keep it in a bag on my belt. What is the smallest diameter, lightest rope any of you would use in such a situation?

 

[Handy2]

Not trying to hijack handys op, but I have a similar question. I like to take a short lanyard and a long lanyard in the tree. For the long lanyard I'm thinking of building the lightest, most compact dr t system I can, so that I can keep it in a bag on my belt. What is the smallest diameter, lightest rope any of you would use in such a situation?

Not recommendations, but some items you might want to look at:
Atwood Grand canyoneering rope is 8mm, very light, and 5400# (polyester over dyneema)
Sterling Canyonlux or Oplux are also strong 8mm ropes, more expensive and more complex construction
Mad Rock Safeguard might work on these ropes (I don't think specs go quite down to 8.0, but on ground level hang tests I have found it to grab on as low as 6mm (Sterling TRC, I think). Safeguard might be the smallest device in it's category.
Atwood (atwoodgear.com) sells 6mm loop prusiks (you can also get a 6mm ocean vectran thimble loop)
SMC has a micro pulley that is very light and doesn't cost much. Petzl Oscilante is also very light, but only 15KN (off the top of my head).
Wild Country Ropeman 1 will grab on Atwood Grand.
There's also Teufelberger's 8mm Ocean Vectran at 5000#, Or 8mm Beeline at 8000#.
You can go to weighmyrack.com to check carabiner weights.
There's lots of ropes in bigger diameters (I'd look at Sterling and Bluewater ropes) than 8mm.
Teufelberger platinum has a neat construction method that keeps it strong if the sheath rips (look at Richard Mumford's RollNLock bridge tests). I think it only goes down to 10.5mm, though.

 

[Handy2]

I use a Sequoia at work, but I'm looking for something lighter and less bulky. New Tribe Tengu looks good (don't know if it's lighter, though), but I'm not sure I'd like not having a floating bridge. For anyone who's tried one, how easy is it to turn your hips back and forth in it?

Skylotec Ignite Record looks good, anyone have personal experience in one? How does it hold up? What's it like to hang in?

I definitely want to be able to do swings and jumps with this setup. I'm not a fan of fast descents on hitch cord, but maybe a hitchiker (possibly with extra friction) would fit the bill?

I'm thinking SRT would be the way to go, as I could do canopy ties with a shorter rope and smaller diameter retrieval line.

Thoughts on using a thinner main line (10.5mm range) for rec use? I definitely wouldn't go that thin for a work climb.

 

[climbstihl]

I haven't used the Ignite Record, but have a lot of experience with the old Record, which doesn't look like it's much different. You can compare it to a rock climbing harness comfort wise, although a relatively comfortable one, save for bigwall harnesses. I have a singing rock dome that is more comfortable and lighter. The record doesn't have a sliding bridge, but it's construction gives you some flexibility, more like a rock harness though, not like a rope bridge.
I think there probably is no lighter bridge saddle than a sequoia. Although the Edelrid Treecore without the padding might be an option.

 

[climbstihl]

Sure 10.5. will work, we always use 10.5mm at work (not for tree climbing per say) but I wouldn't use a hitch on that, I personally would use a descender like the taz lov2 or the skylotec lory pro. The Skylotec sirius also feels pretty nice, but haven't used that much, can't say how well I could move in a tree with that. Low budget option that also works well is a grigri.

 

[Cereal_Killer]

Not trying to hijack handys op, but I have a similar question. I like to take a short lanyard and a long lanyard in the tree. For the long lanyard I'm thinking of building the lightest, most compact dr t system I can, so that I can keep it in a bag on my belt. What is the smallest diameter, lightest rope any of you would use in such a situation?

Put the hitch & pully on the end of your main climb line and you don't have to take any lanyards into the tree at all, pull it up when you need to lanyard in, drop it back down when you don't. Using both ends of your one rope is how they've done it old school for years now.

 

[Cereal_Killer]

Thoughts on using a thinner main line (10.5mm range) for rec use? I definitely wouldn't go that thin for a work climb.

I saddle hunt (and rec climb) on 10mm Reep. Wouldn't dream of working on it but other then hand fatigue on long ascents it's great. 100' weighs nothing and only takes up half of the small Metolius speedster bag I keep it in. I run a HH2 with a 6 wrap HH hitch using 8mm HRC

 

[Hosocat]

Put the hitch & pully on the end of your main climb line and you don't have to take any lanyards into the tree at all, pull it up when you need to lanyard in, drop it back down when you don't. Using both ends of your one rope is how they've done it old school for years now.

Thanks. Sometimes I overlook the obvious.

 

[Handy2]

Effectively a 0 mm lanyard that weighs 0 oz. when you're not using it.....pretty cool if you want to go light.

Well, minus the pulley, biner, and hitch cord.

 

[Handy2]

Has anyone heard of New Tribe doing custom orders? Their basic saddle with uninterrupted webbing on the top (so the attachment d can slide on the top and on the leg bridge, like on the Nikosi 2) looks like it would be pretty ideal for a light, compact, comfortable, budget, back up setup.

If only I could just hang in one first, then I could see if I liked their standard rec suspension before looking for something else.

starting at 1:24

 

[Tree-Taylor]

Small diameter cord with a purcell prussic for a positioning lanyard is a good lightweight option.

 

[Crimsonking]

If working comfort isn’t an issue, the notch sentry sliding d saddle is $50 right now. Can’t get much lighter and bare bones, but still have side ds for a lanyard.

For rope, teufelberger chameleon is nylon core/nylon jacket, making it super light while still giving you 11mm, making it compatible with normal hitches and devices.

 

[moss]

Hey all,
I'm traveling home from college for the holidays and will be getting around by bike. I figured I'd lighten up my system as much as possible so I can travel with it and get in a good bit of rec climbing while I'm there. I have a standard Treemotion, and for sure will be bringing my 110' of Blue Moon with a spliced eye and a Rope Runner. Any ideas on how to superlight a system for times like this?

Also, I'm thinking of setting up a totally separate super light travel system sometime in the future (TM is neither light nor compact). Anyone have any experience with this? What saddle and gear would you use, either for DRT or SRT? It still needs to be somewhat comfortable to hang in, but would only expected to be used for rec climbing and need to follow the ANSI guidelines (except for maybe rope diameter?). I usually opt to bike places instead of driving, and it would be cool to have a system that could be carried around easily, instead of lugging around 40+ pounds of gear or just giving up and putting it all in my car.

I've done a lot bicycle riding to trees, you can run pretty light with conventional tree gear, you'll be well under 40 lbs. I put two panniers on my bike and can fit my Tree Motion, rope, and whatever carabiners etc. I need. Tree Motion is actually quite light as tree harnesses go, it's the hardware/gear you hang on it that makes it heavy (or not). Rope and hardware is where you can save weight the easiest with less functional compromise. If you climb SRS you can use a short rope and still get into most trees unless you're going after old-growth redwoods ;-) You can do it on a 60'-80' 11mm line like Blaze or Velocity for example, that's not going to weigh much. Spit tail and a Rope Wrench weighs very little. Sling runners are light and have multiple uses. You can make a simple choked lanyard with a sling runner to tie-off when re-pitching your main system up or down. Bring 60' of throwline on your harness for setting a pull-down to get out of the tree.

I'm super wary of building a a climbing system based on "minimalist principles". Being overly preoccupied with gear weight can lead you astray. You can keep your bike travel kit very light with smart use of the gear you already have.
-AJ

 

[27RMT0N]

If working comfort isn’t an issue, the notch sentry sliding d saddle is $50 right now. Can’t get much lighter and bare bones, but still have side ds for a lanyard.

Sidenote to this threads overall discussion, but thanks for the heads up on that deal. I'm sure it's not a great working harness (and I cant imagine I'll ever wear it at work), but for $50 I just bought one as a newer harness to keep around and take a friend up a tree once or twice a year.

 

[Crimsonking]

Sidenote to this threads overall discussion, but thanks for the heads up on that deal. I'm sure it's not a great working harness (and I cant imagine I'll ever wear it at work), but for $50 I just bought one as a newer harness to keep around and take a friend up a tree once or twice a year.

They don’t need to be comfortable, right?