When did you first hear?

2000 - I was working as a nurse and the window guys on the outside of the hospital building were going up too, not just down. My nurse Manager had to insist I get my head back inside and get back to work.
Didn't try it until much later, probably 2009.
Progression looked like:RADS/Ropewalker/LineBoss/RW/HH/RR
Tom, the only time I ever used a Uni was trying one of yours at the Kentucky Rendezvous. I think you were there; Nick Araya and I were discussing how little piles of rope fuzz built up on the plates...
 
pigwot said:
2000 - I was working as a nurse and the window guys on the outside of the hospital building were going up too, not just down. My nurse Manager had to insist I get my head back inside and get back to work.
Didn't try it until much later, probably 2009.
Progression looked like:RADS/Ropewalker/LineBoss/RW/HH/RR
Tom, the only time I ever used a Uni was trying one of yours at the Kentucky Rendezvous. I think you were there; Nick Araya and I were discussing how little piles of rope fuzz built up on the plates...
Click to expand...
Sorry guys I was gone for a few days, then misplaced my new password and am just now getting back to answering your questions. I started rigging with a wooden recurved bow that I bought for $5 at a garage sale. I installed a fishing spool on it and used what I seem to recall was a dacron fishing line for the shooting line. At the time some of the other research types were literally bolting their way up trees, using rock climbing methods, but that seemed dumb to me (not to mention hard on trees) so I went directly to a bow. At the same time some of the falconers who I hung out with were using single rope techniques to get in and out of cliff nests, and I borrowed liberally from their methods. I now use mainly crossbows for big trees because they are much more accurate and powerful than anything else out there, including the much vaunted Bigshot. With a good crossbow it is possible to rig over 200' with a fair amount of accuracy.
 
Back in 2000, but only while working on a spar and using a figure 8 to reduce the friction on the hitch. I think I learned it from Ken & Rip.
 
Rich, just out of curiosity, how were you using the 8? Did you run it below the hitch and threaded in normal fashion?
 
SRT was my intro to tree climbing. I worked for a zip-line canopy tour in a Redwood forest for several years and in an effort to learn about a trees I picked up the book "The Wild Trees" and learned about these people called arborists who had developed all of these ways to climb trees. I begged my one of my bosses to teach me some stuff so I could help him inspect elements of the course that were either higher up in the trees. He taught me single line technique and I climbed a Doug fir. with a Kong handled ascender and a prussick hitch as well as some tubular webbing to act as lanyards and foot loops. It was awful and amazing. Now I work for tree service and rarely get to use it. Learning Ddrt has been a huge learning curve from my old SRt recreational days. I still love using it because I haven't been able to develop a way to auto tend slack in a ddrt system which is one of my goals as rookie. But that is a topic for another section of the this forum I think.
 
I started climing SRT about two and half yaers ago.....in Dec 2011 when I got my first rope wrench....no ascenders just footlocking the single line with the wrench...now I use a rope runner with HASS ( long ascents, not so much ) and a pantin....more often I am footlocking ( since I got the RR ) interchanging with the pantin...I like mixing things up...really like the rope runner....
 
TreeLogic said:
The O Rig. Perfect for auto tending slack in DdRT. Try it you'll love it.
Click to expand...
I do love it. I have tied an alpine butterfly above my terminating knot and clipped my hitch and micro pulley to it to tend my slack on longer ascents or when my insists my rope gets put in a pick as far away from the trunk as possible. This works well with some contingencies of course.
 
Yeah, ddrt is definitely better with your feet on the trunk.

I've enjoyed my recent SRT climbs though. A lot of live oaks here, which take multiple tie-in-points to climb. SRT with the Rope Wrench lets me just do redirect after redirect with no penalty (added friction) whatsoever.

An epiphany is taking place.
 
Yeah just keep redirecting....I would never go back to my DRT days....did a single climb for the heck of it the other day in a tree that I was removing 1 big limb...that gave me all the reasons to not do it again.....but that is just me definitely not knocking the guys who still like it....just not for me anymore
 
I first heard of SRT whenever the first Sherrill catalog listed Mar-Bars....and, shortly thereafter, when Paul Sisson demonstrated his tools and technique. I got ascenders and occasionally used then, via the Frog or Texas system, for access. But I never implemented it for regular canopy access. I was an early adopter of setting a floating false crotch and having the ground crew help pull me up, DdRT style. About 2009 or 10, I got a Wraptor, and that quickly took precedent. Then it was stolen last fall....now I've gotten into rope walking, got a Haas and RW..and doing a bit of SRTRP.....

but, being old, fat and lazy, I'm going to buy the Wraptor that a local outfit is selling...for $1100......
 
Tom Dunlap said:
I'm trying to get a better understanding of the timeline for how SRT has been exposed in our profession.

Can you tell me two things?

When did you first hear about SRT in arborculture?

When did you first climb on SRT in trees?

Even just the year or make a guess.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
The first time I saw SRT tom was you in boulder when we all got together to help out the boys from st. Vrain tree service and we were all like... What the hell is he doing? That was probably 04 or 05, it has taken me about five years and a lot of experimenting with different techniques to dial it into my liking
 
Here's a couple of shots of a beautiful old pine I climbed the other day out at my son's place. This loblolly is about 42" DBH, with wonderful spreading branches.
One place SRT really shines is2014-06-18 11.03.03 - Copy.webp 2014-06-18 11.04.06 - Copy.webp in these conifers. Yes, it's possible to do this DdRT, but it was so nice to set a line all the way up in the top and tie off to a basal anchor.
 
Odis Sisk introduced me to the rope wrench at a Vermeer/Sherrill AR seminar in May 2012. I'd used SRT ascent before, having come into tree work from climbing big walls, but hadn't even imagined using it for work positioning until I met Odis. I spend most of my time on a Rope Runner these days, though I finally bought a ZK2 with the intention of using it in competition.
 
Tom Dunlap said:
I'm trying to get a better understanding of the timeline for how SRT has been exposed in our profession.
Can you tell me two things?
When did you first hear about SRT in arborculture?
QUOTE]

1994 was the first that I heard of SRT.

I had some dead or dying trees limbed out, lowered & dropped in my back yard septic system area, by a local service.
This peaked my interest in tree climbing. They did not use STR, however ..........

I contacted New Tribe, when Tom Ness was still there.
I still have catalogs & various communications from Tom & Sophia in my files from that time. They were using & selling SRT acent equipment.

I'm just a rec climber, but it was long before I retired.
Click to expand...
 
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Like many european guys i heard about it because of the SRT version of the Sequoia harness. It was 2 years ago when i started to climb. Wondering what that SRT thing was about google spoke.

As it is not a popular practice here i had to wait to meet american climbers and had my first attempts past January with the Unicender. Then some good climbs back home with the Uni and the Hitch Hiker.
 
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