Using pick-up truck front tow hooks as an anchor point for climbing?

[Stumpsprouts]

This is all good in theory but I feel like continuing to go down the rabbit hole of how to turn a sketchy last ditch basal anchor into a slightly less sketchy last ditch effort is missing the point.

Just canopy tie the dang thing. You eliminate a thousand unnecessary variables.

 

[Winchman]

Turns out there's a larger live limb running parallel to the dead limb and about six feet higher. It's offset just enough to put me in a good position to make a cut halfway out. So, I got two lines over the higher limb, one for the climbing rig, and one for the speed line. I put a good sized stake in the ground to anchor the speed line, and put my climbing rig out on the higher limb and anchored around the tree as usual.

It worked out perfectly. The cut piece landed ten feet from the stake with just a little tug on the limb that I could feel through my harness. Getting the remaining part of the dead limb will take another climb, but I'll be able to use a speedline for it, too. I'll make two cuts to be sure I don't overstress the speedline with the heavier pieces.

Finding another tie-in point and cutting the limb into manageable pieces is the trick.

Thanks for steering me away from a risky setup.

About my climbing rig: It's a 2:1 system with a ball-bearing pulley at the top. A rope runs from the top of the pulley over the limb and down to the basal anchor. I use a Zigzag and a double handed ascender with a footloop to go up, and the ZZ to come down. If I was a lot younger, I'd be using something like you-all are, but this works really well for me now.

 

[evo]

Turns out there's a larger live limb running parallel to the dead limb and about six feet higher. It's offset just enough to put me in a good position to make a cut halfway out. So, I got two lines over the higher limb, one for the climbing rig, and one for the speed line. I put a good sized stake in the ground to anchor the speed line, and put my climbing rig out on the higher limb and anchored around the tree as usual.

It worked out perfectly. The cut piece landed ten feet from the stake with just a little tug on the limb that I could feel through my harness. Getting the remaining part of the dead limb will take another climb, but I'll be able to use a speedline for it, too. I'll make two cuts to be sure I don't overstress the speedline with the heavier pieces.

Finding another tie-in point and cutting the limb into manageable pieces is the trick.

Thanks for steering me away from a risky setup.

About my climbing rig: It's a 2:1 system with a ball-bearing pulley at the top. A rope runs from the top of the pulley over the limb and down to the basal anchor. I use a Zigzag and a double handed ascender with a footloop to go up, and the ZZ to come down. If I was a lot younger, I'd be using something like you-all are, but this works really well for me now.

How are you installing the pulley?

 

[Winchman]

Like this:

I pull the Mercury rope up with the throwline or bookmark, then use it to pull the pulley up to the TIP, and then tie it off to the basal anchor.

I figured out a way to use a prussik and two micro pulleys to do a canopy anchor, but it requires a long tag line that gets in the way. I only used it once for a short climb.

 

[Stumpsprouts]

A canopy tie can be set up using zero hardware or just a quickie. Others already mentioned this on this thread. Typically folks tie a alpine butterfly on the retrieval end, then secure the climbing end of the rope to the alpine butterfly using a quickie. Here’s a good video by Educated Climber regarding that method-

If you are desperate you can use a carabiner but it has the potential for the gate to roll and open under tension. You can double up two carabiners facing opposite to account for this, but it’s cheaper to get a quickie.

You also can set it up using zero hardware from the ground by tying the alpine butterfly then feeding the climbing end through it. This limits your ability to change your system when you get up there but I’ll do it for an up and down prune.

Even simpler than that, you can send up your climb line with a running bowline w Yosemite finish. No hardware. You can switch to DRT or whatever you want when you get to the tie in point.. Or you can keep that setup and throw a tag on the tail of the bowline (you would have a slightly longer tail on your knot in this case) for ground retrieval at end of climb.

 

[Stumpsprouts]

I wanted to point out something unique to conifer SRT tie in points since you said you are working on a pine. It’s hard to get a solid TIP when there are no large branches... I would not recommend doing a canopy tie on a singular branch on a conifer unless it’s very large. You can do a basal anchor if you are including several branches, that allows for some redundancy if one branch fails. Best is to have it around the truck, that takes some throwline skill but it’s doable. I included a little diagram I wrote on my kitchen counter...

 

[southsoundtree]

Like this:
View attachment 73123
I pull the Mercury rope up with the throwline or bookmark, then use it to pull the pulley up to the TIP, and then tie it off to the basal anchor.

I figured out a way to use a prussik and two micro pulleys to do a canopy anchor, but it requires a long tag line that gets in the way. I only used it once for a short climb.

Looks to be make for a carabiner to go through the pulley, not rope. ???

 

[evo]

Looks to be make for a carabiner to go through the pulley, not rope. ???

Agreed. That pulley doesn’t look textile friendly. I always have found a pulley at a tip on DdRT too little friction. Opposite and apposed locking carabiners work a treat.

 

[Jonny]

Third that. Almost all rescue pulleys and micro pulleys need a carabiner. Pintos and Omniblocks are an exception. There’s probably a couple others, but that one needs a biner or screw link or something like that.

 

[Winchman]

You are correct about the pulley not being rope friendly. If you look on the right hand side of the rope, you'll see a little sliver of white. That's the edge of a piece of PEX pipe that gives me a 1/2" bend radius for the knot to bear on. I make sure the knot is cinched up tight before pulling it up, and it's never moved while in use. I was using a rated delta link for a while, but decided it was too heavy and bulky.

I don't understand about the pulley having too little friction. More friction would make it harder to climb, wouldn't it? Is there an upside to some resistance that I don't know about?

 

[Jonny]

Good move with the pex, as long as it stays put and is inspected often.

A pulley at the TIP in a moving rope will make it easier to body thrust and pull yourself up, but all that friction you eliminated at the TIP ends up at the hitch. Every time I’ve tried it my hitch misbehaves, binds up, and makes it easier to glaze my rope or cord. A pair of identical carabiners works pretty nice.

I haven’t tried a pulley with the ZigZag before though, that might be nicer than the hitch.

 

[27RMT0N]

You are correct about the pulley not being rope friendly. If you look on the right hand side of the rope, you'll see a little sliver of white. That's the edge of a piece of PEX pipe that gives me a 1/2" bend radius for the knot to bear on. I make sure the knot is cinched up tight before pulling it up, and it's never moved while in use. I was using a rated delta link for a while, but decided it was too heavy and bulky.

I don't understand about the pulley having too little friction. More friction would make it harder to climb, wouldn't it? Is there an upside to some resistance that I don't know about?

For DRT, there is kind of a sweet-spot in terms of friction, but where that is depends on what you are doing in the specific situation and your own personal preference.

More often than not, I use ring-and-ring friction savers but occasionally I'll put a pully at my TIP, and am always on a ZigZag. One recent tree I can recall was a multi-stem big leaf maple where I'd spured up to install the rigging point and my TIP. Because I was supring and down multiple stems during the removal while utilizing the one TIP the whole time, by having the pully above the slack would actually tend itself as I spured up the stem where the TIP was, and made for slack tending while on the other stems super easy.

 

[Winchman]

I used a hitch with the pulley for a while, and really didn't like it. There was too much friction when it wasn't needed, and the give-back before the hitch tightened was too much. The ZZ has almost no friction when I'm going up, and very little give-back before it locks. I'd give it an overall 11 on a 1-10 scale.

 

[evo]

I wanted to point out something unique to conifer SRT tie in points since you said you are working on a pine. It’s hard to get a solid TIP when there are no large branches... I would not recommend doing a canopy tie on a singular branch on a conifer unless it’s very large. You can do a basal anchor if you are including several branches, that allows for some redundancy if one branch fails. Best is to have it around the truck, that takes some throwline skill but it’s doable. I included a little diagram I wrote on my kitchen counter... View attachment 73130

And even better getting the line across two limbs from the same whorl.

 

[Phil]

Best is to have it around the truck, that takes some throwline skill but it’s doable.

I would pay good money to watch you make this happen. If you were successful I'd have to consider the possibility that you are a witch and for some unknown reason have chosen to use your magical abilities for tree work.

 

[Stumpsprouts]

I would pay good money to watch you make this happen. If you were successful I'd have to consider the possibility that you are a witch and for some unknown reason have chosen to use your magical abilities for tree work.

Thank you for illuminating my typo saying ‘truck’ instead of ‘trunk’. Getting a throwline around a truck is indeed a very, very high level 70+ final fantasy black mage kind of skill. Takes a lot of steps. Sometimes trucks are long and you gotta step a lot of steps!! And stop for snack breaks.

 

[treesap]

Thank you for illuminating my typo saying ‘truck’ instead of ‘trunk’. Getting a throwline around a truck is indeed a very, very high level 70+ final fantasy black mage kind of skill. Takes a lot of steps. Sometimes trucks are long and you gotta step a lot of steps!! And stop for snack breaks.

c'mon man, its hard for you? I seem to get my throwline tied in a clove hitch around my neighbors truck twice every time I use it.


On Accident as well