Old school/less gear

[speelyei]

thats so funny, because I was a rock climber guy before i was a tree guy, and thats exactly why I dont use 'biners. For me, the applications etc etc have proved mutually exclusive... In climbing, we always used two non-locking carabiners, gates opposed... I never knew anybody who would TR or work from a single 'biner... but in tree work, it's done all the time. Maybe thats why I havent used any of the retrievable false crotches, I just have an innate repulsion at trusting that single attachment point. having jumar'ed a pitch or two made single rope access second nature, it's been attitude that has kept me from using that more often, my attitude and the ignorance of supervisors.. It's not all it's cracked up to be though, a couple weeks ago i had to remove ivy off of some 200' doug firs. the ivy was grown up past 100'. I just shot a line with the big shot, and worked the rope as best I could to the trunk, but it was still impossible to see. I jugged up through the ivy, nervous every second. When I got to the top, my access line was about 4" above the good, live limb I thought I was tied in on. It had caught on a dead stub about the size of a cigar butt. If that thing had broken, I wouldn't have died, but it would've scared the life out of me, and I might've just bagged it for the day.

 

[Blinky]

[ QUOTE ]
thats so funny, because I was a rock climber guy before i was a tree guy, and thats exactly why I dont use 'biners. For me, the applications etc etc have proved mutually exclusive... In climbing, we always used two non-locking carabiners, gates opposed... I never knew anybody who would TR or work from a single 'biner... but in tree work, it's done all the time. [...]

[/ QUOTE ]

Not trying to start anything, just continuing the conversation.

It was just the opposite with me, I had a hard time giving up my rock gear in tree work. I still have a chain of good old Chouinard Lite D's in my climbing bag for loop runners and stuff.

How about catching lead falls on single lightweight D's? That's done all the time too, right? I've done rappels on the lousiest non-locking biner on my rack, the one I was most willing to leave behind... never hesitated to use a single screwlocking biner for top ropes. Granted, rock climbing systems are more elastic but if you can't trust a biner, how can you trust a snap? They both have about the same tensile strength. Snaps are aggravating on lifelines because you can't just slip the eye end off of whatever it's attached to... you can't easily clove hitch'em.

To me, the safety factors in all tree equipment makes worrying about any properly used and maintained gear a non-issue. I worry about things like side loading, shock, heat, little pins coming out of shackles... sneaky stuff like that. I want to be able to take a long stem to stem swing way up high and focus totally on making the connection... worrying about something breaking really screws that up.

Just for the record, I use both... snaps on my lanyards and biners on my rope.