Daniel
Carpal tunnel level member
- Location
- Suburban Philadelphia (Wayne)
I nominate Patt Epps. He's actually Big Jon's mentee... Big Jon hasn't been on the boards much lately, but some of you old timers might remember him. Anyhow, Pat is a great climber both technically and personally. He's got a great attitude. Things always go smooooth with no upset or yelling. And he puts the wood on the ground fast. He moves quickly and has a great understanding of rigging, pruning, ropes, gear, and groundies.
You can check out his work on the following video. This is part 1 of 2 from a job we did June 27, 2009, rigging and falling three 100'+ Tulip trees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpwDNQwKzFo
Pats is good but not perfect. If you look closely, you can see a couple mistakes he makes on bypass cuts on his notches on the bigger wood in part 2, and there is one low backcut. Although I've invited him over to review the tapes, he hasn't made it yet, so we haven't discussed this yet. We all can improve on some aspect of our understanding or skills.
That said he is a great climber. Fast, efficient, safe, experienced, aware and cares about the people on the ground. I really love working with him and was thrilled to be able to capture some great tree work in this video.
I was running the ropes in part 1. In part 2, I ran the camera from the bucket and then had to run the ropes again towards the end of the day, as the two other experienced ground guys left at 2:30. The customer actually ran the camera for a few shots then, and did a good job, but a bunch of late afternoon cuts never made it to tape.
Pat started up the first tree around 10 AM and all three trees were on the ground by 5:45. We lost 45 minutes becasue I had to go home and get more tape, and another 30 minutes for lunch, and who knows how much extra time the video took, so it was about 6-6.5 hours of work for 1 climber and four groundmen, except the last two hours there were only 3 ground men. I was trying to show how efficient a good climber and ground crew can be whe they all get in the flow.
You can check out his work on the following video. This is part 1 of 2 from a job we did June 27, 2009, rigging and falling three 100'+ Tulip trees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpwDNQwKzFo
Pats is good but not perfect. If you look closely, you can see a couple mistakes he makes on bypass cuts on his notches on the bigger wood in part 2, and there is one low backcut. Although I've invited him over to review the tapes, he hasn't made it yet, so we haven't discussed this yet. We all can improve on some aspect of our understanding or skills.
That said he is a great climber. Fast, efficient, safe, experienced, aware and cares about the people on the ground. I really love working with him and was thrilled to be able to capture some great tree work in this video.
I was running the ropes in part 1. In part 2, I ran the camera from the bucket and then had to run the ropes again towards the end of the day, as the two other experienced ground guys left at 2:30. The customer actually ran the camera for a few shots then, and did a good job, but a bunch of late afternoon cuts never made it to tape.
Pat started up the first tree around 10 AM and all three trees were on the ground by 5:45. We lost 45 minutes becasue I had to go home and get more tape, and another 30 minutes for lunch, and who knows how much extra time the video took, so it was about 6-6.5 hours of work for 1 climber and four groundmen, except the last two hours there were only 3 ground men. I was trying to show how efficient a good climber and ground crew can be whe they all get in the flow.
