Haven't heard wackadoodle for a while...thanks!
In about '91/'92 I was at a buddy's place. His roomie was a caver.
there were a few books in his library that were interesting. On Rope really caught my eye. There were lots of things that could work for tree climbing. A trip to Half Price Books put the first edition of OR in my hands.
that's how I got interested in SRT.
This is pre Internet so what I learned was on my own. I'd meet up with other climbers at events and talk about what I was doing. There was some interest and others thought I was completely off my keel. That attitude is still around and I find that the best reaction is to not react and find people with open minds.
Soon enough I figured out the access procedure we now call, Single Up, Double Down. I'd isolate my TIP andsend up a running bowline to choke. Next breakthrough was to leave a tail in the bowline as a pulldown if I didn't need to climb all the way to my TIP. Next...base anchor. No one was teaching me any of this. I was on my own to work out the details. Around that time the ISA started their discussion forums. Lots of great people involved and we could share ideas.
There were some srt systems that sorta worked in trees. Variations on RADs. That was OK but not smooth like DdRT. I tried a few hitches but they didn't work. Starting in fall '03 or so I started going through trying to find a combination of rope, cordage and hitch that would work for ascending but grab when I let go. Then it needed to not lock down tight. For another year I went through a myriad of combinations. Some hitches would work perfect for ascent but would slip and not lock up for descending. My conclusion was that something needed to be added to the hitch to let it slide but grab. My idea was a Bachmann Hitch or a variation.
then I crossed paths with Morgan Thompson and the Unicender. A very fateful day for both of us!
Kevin Bingham solved the issue of how to add a bit of slippery friction with the RW instead of a Bachmann.
Along the way there was a lot of mockery of my enthusiasm for SRT. Pffft! My motto became, SRT is the future of tree climbing. What would you say?
It didn't take me long to know that SRT would add another decade to my climbing career. It did!
a lot of details have been left out but that's my story with SRT.
There might be in sights here:
When did you hear...
