Micro Pulleys/Slack tender History?

[TC]

Does anyone here have any idea on roughly when and who came up with using a micro pulley for slack tending/fair lead/tailing? I assume it was first used to help with coming back into the main trunk from a branchwalk? then someone found out about the fair lead aspect by chance, and the tailing method when the groundie belays the climber as he ascends up through the crown.

I suppose the development was very organic and someone just tried it one day and another person showed it to their friend half way across the world during a climbing comp/training day or something.

Interested to hear of people's first experience of the micro pulley to advance a friction hitch like the tautline or Blakes, who showed them it and when?

Here's my system which is pretty old school by today's Hitchclimber/Ropewrench standards.

cheers

 

[tomthetreeman]

I learned about micropulleys in 1998 and every climber that was familiar with them around here seemed to be pretty new to the idea. The Blake's was still all the rage then, too.

-Tom

PS - I learned about them from Joey at IAS (Innovative Arborist Solutions) at the NE comp in RI in 98.

 

[unatool]

Cool thread.

I started climbing full time in '99. Tautline and body thrusts.
Heard about split tails,pulleys, new hitches by 2004
Went to my first comp in '08. Blew my mind...

HA! going to a SRT seminar in February. like a vegan...

 

[islandarb]

I started climbing in '08 with a blake's hitch. Added the purple cmi a year and a half later. Switched to a VT and hitchclimber this year. You guys led the way for my quick advancement. Got the wrench now but haven't had time to try it out. Now everyone knows my climbing history even though I shared it in a thread before.

 

[Mark Chisholm]

That's a good question. Maybe Soner will chime in here. I remember climbing on an English prusik and using a non locking krab instead of a pulley in the early 90s.

 

[trevmcrev]

Cool question!

I remember going from english prusik loop and steel screwlock carabiner to a "French Prusik" which turned out to be a VT the day after seeing the then current world champion Dan Kraus do a demonstration climb at what i think was the first Tree climbing competition in Victoria, Australia in 1997.

I went home that night and figured it out and didn't look back.

It was also the first i saw of really good throwbag use!

 

[Tom Dunlap]

split tails and slack tenders were common when Jeff Jepson printed the first edition of The Tree Climber's Companion. Can anyone pull their copy and look at copyright dates?

Early 90s sounds right to me too.

 

[whiz]

Ken Palmer showed me at TCI Expo in 1992, Baltimore.