Staying organized around the saddle...

I was thinking about these questions yesterday and today- I’m doing a real get-out-to-the-tip weight reduction on two mature oaks. (This was me yesterday.)

I wish I had some visuals, I’m also a visual learner. I will try to describe.

The tail of your rope is ideally always in the path that you will travel next. It is also important that this reaches the ground and is not bunched up in a bunch of bights or taking a lot of hard redirects. Imagine getting stung by 40 hornets. You will want your tail to be routed to the ground.

In a large sprawling canopy you will need to reroute the tail of your rope by hand several times. Reserve calories for this task. Avoid having excessive tail to save your arm strength. (With SRT you can anchor your rope intelligently to have only the amount of tail you will need.) Ideally it will only need to be done as you move from one section of the tree to the next. Think ahead to where you need to travel and route your tail intelligently.

Someone else already explained this- your lanyard will be on the outside of your climb line mostly. If you have a climb line directed horizontally or at a steep angle to your body, your lanyard will be on the inside of that climb line.

Two tie in points can bugger things up more than anything else. You may enter a limb walk facing your torso towards your two tie in points and have them routed perfectly- but as soon as you turn around, or move about the canopy some more, you may find they are criss crossing. In these cases, you would lanyard in, and sometimes you just need to unclip your climbing system from your bridge and pass it on the other side of your second climbing system. This is not uncommon.

As always, move slowly and with consideration. Your body and hands will learn the results of small subtle movements (tensioning in and out of your lanyard and system, where toes are pointed, knees bent, etc etc).
 

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Stumpsprouts,

This is super valuable. I understood the notion of the tail for limb walking, as many videos have shared to have it behind you as you move out. I never thought about it in the larger context that you presented. Very cool...and will be incorporated into my climbing.

There has been a couple times when my rope didn't touch the ground any longer. I knew it was a best practice, but didn't have a strong example (let's now call it a "stinging example") of how that could play out in a most unfortunate manner. Some lessons you just don't want to experience. I owe you one!

A follow up question: I understand all you shared about line and lanyard management. There are times when the main line is above and in front, and the best limb for my lanyard is behind me. This would occur if I'm ascending the main trunk, and there's a limb coming off the trunk to which I want to transfer. If that description makes sense, do you simply lanyard behind you while you get organized...or is that a sin, and there's a better/safer option?

Thank you.
 
Zebco Kid said:
Stumpsprouts,

This is super valuable. I understood the notion of the tail for limb walking, as many videos have shared to have it behind you as you move out. I never thought about it in the larger context that you presented. Very cool...and will be incorporated into my climbing.

There has been a couple times when my rope didn't touch the ground any longer. I knew it was a best practice, but didn't have a strong example (let's now call it a "stinging example") of how that could play out in a most unfortunate manner. Some lessons you just don't want to experience. I owe you one!

A follow up question: I understand all you shared about line and lanyard management. There are times when the main line is above and in front, and the best limb for my lanyard is behind me. This would occur if I'm ascending the main trunk, and there's a limb coming off the trunk to which I want to transfer. If that description makes sense, do you simply lanyard behind you while you get organized...or is that a sin, and there's a better/safer option?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
I’m a little bit guessing as to the scenario…

It sounds like a situation where I would swing my body into the union where I wanted to be and lock in with my feet or one hand, then clip my lanyard in. This is a bit precarious… but in production climbing it’s the way you get places. As long as your tip is fairly high above you and you won’t be taking a giant swing, you will have to make certain leaps of faith to get locked into a work position that isn’t directly plumb to your tie in point.
 
Yeah, mileage varies on whether the tail of your rope always touches the ground. In work climbing always, in rec climbing it’s a choice. A couple of scenarios:

1. Big conifer rec climbing
I’m often multi pitching my way to the top of tall ones, the tail of my rope will be far from reaching the ground. Which brings up situational awareness for rec climbers: in the “warm season” always watching for wasp activity as you climb. Problem with canopy wasps is once you piss them off you cant’t outrun them on a rappel. Seeing them first works best. Sometimes I’ll leave my base anchored access line in place and advance above that with my short lanyard and a 60-100 “short rope” depending on the size of the tree. On return use the base anchored line to exit the tree.

2. I’m climbing primarily on an 85’ line these days for woods rec climbing on broadleafs/hardwoods. My exit anchor pull down is an assemblege of rope tail, Hook line, and short lanyard all attached inline as needed.

It can be done safely with consideration. Practice everything new low and slow.
-AJ
 
Good advice from A.J., as always. And I would add a knot on the rope tail, for safety, if there is ever any appreciable distance from the ground to the end. Escaping some wasps or whatever, it might be easy to forget and rappel off the tail.
 
Burrapeg said:
Good advice from A.J., as always. And I would add a knot on the rope tail, for safety, if there is ever any appreciable distance from the ground to the end. Escaping some wasps or whatever, it might be easy to forget and rappel off the tail.
Click to expand...

The inverse caveat is never depend on being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency, been there, failed that. Hitch glommed onto the tape wrap on the tail of my rope and wouldn't let go. With a mechanical might be able to. Low percentage anyone will need that, it is impressive though how little will stop you when you're thinking otherwise.
-AJ
 
Zebco Kid said:
Hello All,

I'm kind of embarrassed to write this...but I'm going to duck behind relative anonymity for the necessary emotional safety (SMILE).

So as I'm climbing, with some degree of frequency I get pretty tangled up with which rope should be connected to which carabiner, which rope should be underneath or to the outside of the other rope, etc.

Is this lack of experience? Is this normal? Is reshifting, reconnecting, reorganizing all part of the tree climbing experience? Or...have I missed the first few pages of the lesson plan...and there's something equivalent to righty tighty, lefty loosey when it comes to climbing saddles and gear. Perhaps there's something like lanyard outside, climbing rope inside...

Any tricks of the trade that I have not picked up on as of yet that will help keep things in the proper orientation, and on the optimal side of the action?

Thanks...
Click to expand...

Part of the "experience gaining process" is getting used to your climbing setup and what equipment you are using / carrying with you.

I like to think of it almost as muscle memory. If you are constantly climbing with the same gear, you learn where on your saddle a piece of equipment is, where to position what rope / lanyard in a variety of situations, without having to actually give it much thought. It's something that just takes time though.

And of course sometimes you may need to adapt, that's also part of being a tree climber is being able to adapt to different environments and situations that may call for different climbing techniques, etc.
 
moss said:
. . . . . With a mechanical might be able to. Low percentage anyone will need that, it is impressive though how little will stop you when you're thinking otherwise.
-AJ
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Tis the season: the converse of this is, I am amazed at how little ice/ frozen slop on a rope can send you into an uncontrollable descent down a rope! We had finished a climb one time and inspected the ropes before throwing them down for a rappell - they didn't look all that icy at all but when we hit sections we went down amazingly fast-like. So to me, the sapped up rope and the iced up rope are opposite ends of a fairly narrow margin of design conditions for whatever you're using to get you down in one piece, alive and thankful. Which is why I back up with a munter or F8 or something on the down elevator, so at least we can tell our Mom's we tried to be safe . . .

(On other climbs we experienced icy wet ropes we could literally hold out horizontal for four or five feet, then banged the ice off them and came down no problem)
 
Burrapeg said:
Good advice from A.J., as always. And I would add a knot on the rope tail, for safety, if there is ever any appreciable distance from the ground to the end. Escaping some wasps or whatever, it might be easy to forget and rappel off the tail.
Click to expand...
Rec climber myself, and only for a few years, but I'd remove that "if...". My instructor says to ALWAYS tie a stopper on the free end of my line, and I do that even if the tippy top leaf of the tree is at 40' and my (MRS) line is 120'. The "wasted" time is infinitesimal, and when it comes to safety eliminating opportunities for failure / error invaluable. I'd rather make it a habit where I always tie it, and always verify it's there before ascending. Makes it much less likely to forget it when it could matter.

Also leave perhaps 3' of tail beyond the stopper; that way if you end up hitting it you have something to footlock onto to get off the stopper.

I've seen the "mandatory end stopper" debated on rock climbing forums. Many do not do it. There have *also* been several rock climbers -- experts, not beginners -- who have rappelled off the end of their line into multi-hundred foot falls. Climbing has no place for hubris.
 
Years back, when I had the first few climbs done, I also went way too far on that said enthusiastic shopping spree. It was like you wrote already, the saddle stayed reasonably clean though. But I held on to every piece no matter how little use it got. Then i found out it is way more relaxing to practice traverses with a second rope :) ... or to get to see what all the double line fuzz is about. Guess how happy I am today about the spare zigzag from a holiday sale, now that my kids start to try climbing.
 
moss said:
The inverse caveat is never depend on being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency, been there, failed that. Hitch glommed onto the tape wrap on the tail of my rope and wouldn't let go. With a mechanical might be able to. Low percentage anyone will need that, it is impressive though how little will stop you when you're thinking otherwise.
-AJ
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"...being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency..." Would this be mainly in reference to needing to quickly reattach to the "base anchor access line" from quickly coming down the tree from your short lanyard and "short rope", to quickly escape wasps?
And, what about the SRT device you're using, if it is mid-line attachable, would that be fast enough to dettach from the upper rope and reattach to the base line anchor?
 
Willber said:
"...being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency..." Would this be mainly in reference to needing to quickly reattach to the "base anchor access line" from quickly coming down the tree from your short lanyard and "short rope", to quickly escape wasps?
And, what about the SRT device you're using, if it is mid-line attachable, would that be fast enough to dettach from the upper rope and reattach to the base line anchor?
Click to expand...
I think he means more generally - descending and sliding off the end of your rope and dropping a short distance to the ground. Either SRS or MRS.
 
Willber said:
"...being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency..." Would this be mainly in reference to needing to quickly reattach to the "base anchor access line" from quickly coming down the tree from your short lanyard and "short rope", to quickly escape wasps?
And, what about the SRT device you're using, if it is mid-line attachable, would that be fast enough to dettach from the upper rope and reattach to the base line anchor?
Click to expand...
Not attaching and reattaching to anything. You are always connected to a primary lifeload device on a climb line that gets you to the ground.

And btw… since the reference of wasps persists in the thread, I wanted to expand… It’s not just wasps, it’s fatigue, dehydration, hunger, partner called and you need to leave suddenly, helper on the ground has an emergency, you need to move a truck quickly, the sheer pain in the ass of having to deal with an inadequate length rope or poorly routed rope just in a general sense.
 
Willber said:
"...being able to run off the tail of your rope in an emergency..." Would this be mainly in reference to needing to quickly reattach to the "base anchor access line" from quickly coming down the tree from your short lanyard and "short rope", to quickly escape wasps?
And, what about the SRT device you're using, if it is mid-line attachable, would that be fast enough to dettach from the upper rope and reattach to the base line
Click to expand...

Tuebor said:
I think he means more generally - descending and sliding off the end of your rope and dropping a short distance to the ground. Either SRS or MRS.
Click to expand...

Yes, thanks, I was climbing DdRT, on a summer day mid 90's temps, ran out of water but made the rookie mistake of continuing to work until I felt strange and realized I was in trouble. I was on a 150' line anchored too high to reach the ground without re-pitching (another mistake for working in trees). As I descended I realized I was losing it to the point that I wouldn't be able to re-pitch in time to keep it all together. I estimated that I could descend and run off the tail of my rope with hopefully only a 10-12' or so drop to the ground. When I tried to run off the rope my hitch grabbed the tape wrap on the end of the line. Took me 3 tries to lift myself with one arm, unclip from my harness and drop to the ground. The homeowner was luckily nearby, I requested that they pour a bucket of cold water on my head as I lay on the ground. That worked. Stopped work for the day ;-)
-AJ
 
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moss said:
Yes, thanks, I was climbing DdRT, on a summer day mid 90's temps, ran out of water but made the rookie mistake of continuing to work until I felt strange and realized I was in trouble. I was on a 150' line anchored too high to reach the ground without re-pitching (another mistake for working in trees). As I descended I realized I was losing it to the point that I wouldn't be able to re-pitch in time to keep it all together. I estimated that I could descend and run off the tail of my rope with hopefully only a 10-12' or so drop to the ground. When I tried to run off the rope my hitch grabbed the tape wrap on the end of the line. Took me 3 tries to lift myself with one arm, unclip from my harness and drop to the ground. The homeowner was luckily nearby, I requested that they pour a bucket of cold water on my head as I lay on the ground. That worked. Stopped work for the day ;-)
-AJ
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That sounds terrifying just reading it Andrew! I’m glad you came through it alright. No water equals very not good things for me. I always have plenty on hand.
 
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