Tallest tropical tree climbed

[Tom Dunlap]

I'd like to know what they use to set their throwline.

Read about the climber's bee attack. He wasn't using a multi-scender so he had to do a changeover. He got 200 stings.

Tallest tropical tree ascent

 

[Jonny]

Cool, good read!
Surprised they used an actual airplane to find it. Thought drones were the way to map out dense rainforests these days.

Kinda wanna call bullshit about one thing I read there, here's the quote;

" If you fall unconscious whilst climbing a tree the chest harness prevents you from slumping into a safe position—head lower than heart. An unconscious climber in that position has only three minutes or so to survive and that means the ground team must quickly get them down using an emergency extra rope. "

 

[colb]

Cool, good read!
Surprised they used an actual airplane to find it. Thought drones were the way to map out dense rainforests these days.

They were probably using LIDAR, a powerful spatial information gathering tool. They can scan a wide swathe of forest in detail from a plane. LIDAR also detects light wavelengths that are associated with plant taxonomic groups. In groups where wavelength absorption/reflection is conserved, it is less helpful. In other cases, you can tell the species of each tree. I last read about this when it was starting up in a Stanford research group a decade ago. They flew a transect across South America, just to warm up, lol. Drones can't compete with that on a landscape scale, but would be very suitable for surveys within open tree canopies...

 

[colb]

He wasn't using a multi-scender so he had to do a changeover. He got 200 stings.

Tallest tropical tree ascent

I'm guessing that was some time ago because he has a 4srt chest harness in the picture. I wonder what he used to ascend the big tree.

 

[colb]

Kinda wanna call bullshit about one thing I read there, here's the quote;

" If you fall unconscious whilst climbing a tree the chest harness prevents you from slumping into a safe position—head lower than heart. An unconscious climber in that position has only three minutes or so to survive and that means the ground team must quickly get them down using an emergency extra rope. "

I have not heard this either. If that is the case, I would want to know, and it bears on recent ANSI standard revisions for bucket work...

@Steve Connally ?

 

[Jehinten]

" If you fall unconscious whilst climbing a tree the chest harness prevents you from slumping into a safe position—head lower than heart. An unconscious climber in that position has only three minutes or so to survive and that means the ground team must quickly get them down using an emergency extra rope. "

I suspect that this is misquoted and that he means that the chest harness would keep his head above his heart if he were to become unconscious.

At the end of the story there is a notation, that parts of the story had been edited and altered for clarity, likely because of the translation from his native language to English. A misquote could have been caused by translation, or the author (presumably not a climber) thinking that he was making it grammatically correct for his readers.

 

[Jem4417]

I thought I saw they use a ten foot big shot with a sort of fishing line with an 8 ounce weight. They shoot that up. Then pull a throwline through, then the climbing line. I may be wrong.

 

[samsquatch]

Kinda wanna call bullshit about one thing I read there, here's the quote;

" If you fall unconscious whilst climbing a tree the chest harness prevents you from slumping into a safe position—head lower than heart. An unconscious climber in that position has only three minutes or so to survive and that means the ground team must quickly get them down using an emergency extra rope. "

I thought it sounded a bit stretchy too.. But technically - and I know all this because I just re-read my copy of "On Rope" the other day - if you're using a crappy harness (like.. really crappy harness made of webbing or something) you subject your blood vessels and heart to a condition called "harness pathology".

The reason it becomes more dangerous if/after you lose consciousness is because you can't be awake to tell your legs to move when they become numb or when they start losing circulation. This leads to compartment syndrome, and, according to the text, toxins from the these low-oxygen extremities can reach the heart. IIRC, the text also mentions a 3-5 min low-end time limit for serious bodily / organ damage.

Stuff is no joke. Shitty harnesses should only be reserved for emergency-only rescue work, and even then the rescuers need to be aware of harness pathology.

 

[samsquatch]

Great read here, seems as though the FED has also done the research on it. AKA "suspension trauma".

 

[Jonny]

Yes, we have trauma straps to stand in if we fall off a railcar or silo or storage tank at my day job. Hanging from a dorsal D ring on a fall arrest harness sucks. Sitting in a tree climbing saddle is comfy.

Probably something lost (or made up) in translation. I've probably spent lots of time unconscious with my head lower than my heart and all kinds of weird spots and haven't had a problem. As long as you're not impeding blood flow to a limb or head, should be good, no?

 

[Richard Mumford-yoyoman]

Not one of my tallest trees but it was a fun challenge.

 

[Richard Mumford-yoyoman]

I'd like to know what they use to set their throwline.

Read about the climber's bee attack. He wasn't using a multi-scender so he had to do a changeover. He got 200 stings.

Tallest tropical tree ascent

IMO it's nuts to climb tall or tropical trees without a multicender. Many currently still use a texas kick with toothed ascenders then switch over to an Petzl I'D for descent. NUTS!!!

 

[Roger_Barnett]

I'd like to know what they use to set their throwline.

Read about the climber's bee attack. He wasn't using a multi-scender so he had to do a changeover. He got 200 stings.

Tallest tropical tree ascent

Thanks for the link, Tom. I've posted in on a few big tree facebook group pages..and my timeline.