# slip and grip knots, tree climbing.



## weisyboy (Jul 26, 2009)

gday

in the last few weeks i have been collecting burls of big trees. 

some of these burls are 60' off the ground and more untill now i have been going up with spring boards. id rather not do this any more as there is quite a few notches required to get 20m up a tree and its not as safe as id like. 

i had a mate (arbourist) show me both Klemheist and Prusik Knot but im stuffed if i can get tehm to slide easily. they move the first movement easily but then jam and wont slide. and i cant get tehm to relice to let me down.

what am i doing rong?

anyhelp would be great.


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## weisyboy (Jul 26, 2009)

all the trees i do are in development sites and teh trees are coming down in any case.

but the developers want me in and gone before they start so they dont get stuffed around.


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## TheTreeSpyder (Jul 26, 2009)

Could it be you are using hitch and trying to descend in SRT mode?


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## weisyboy (Jul 26, 2009)

i am trying to climb single rope. the bloke that showed me went up and squzed teh knot and repeled back down. 

i am havign rtouble even getting teh knots to even relese enough to go up. 

is tehre a good double rope climb that u can recomend.


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## TheTreeSpyder (Jul 26, 2009)

Tooo many things to cover, need an onsite guide to mentor thru; this is a specific setup to get hitch to slide, by allowing it to unload, so it can.


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## weisyboy (Jul 28, 2009)

got it working today. using double rope method. 

rope from harness over branch and back down to the ground.

a Prusik Knot attached to the harness and onto the other rope.

pull up, hold, slide knot up, pull up, hold, slide knot repeated lots. 

to get back down i just pull onto the top of the knot and slide down a bit at a time. although the rope gets very hot if i go to far at a time.


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## lostcoastland (Aug 9, 2009)

i find prusiks great for positioning in the tree and acsending but always use my gri gri to get down...it too gets really hot on long descents... i've heard of guys pouring water on em descending out of 300' plus redwoods for research..i imagine a prusik would melt through after a descent like that. 
Also using the doubled rope tecjnique adds a lot of friction what i've been doing is tying off my rope to the trunk with a double wrap timber hitch with a double tunnel back up. Then i stuff my rope back into the bag and let it feed out as i climb. when i get to my anchor point up top i pull all the rope out of the bag as i run it through a natural crotch,ect. and descend on a single line which makes workign in the tree alot easier that pulling slack of two lines and works good especially in tree witha lot of sap like fir trees. then your not running your rope across bark all day. The only catch is the sometimes your rope can get hit with a branch before you make it up to the top...unless you use two fliplinesand dont take any branches. but i've been planning on having people around to bail me out if i drop a big branch onto my slack pile( which some times jumps out of the bag a littel early


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## weisyboy (Aug 9, 2009)

i do prefer the single rope assent and heaving a second rope for decent is a good idea. 

spent the day up trees today always with 2 people for safety. 

got stuck up one when the rope cut into the bark of a stringy bark tree (deep soft bark) and would not let me come down. that was not a good feeling hanging 8m of the ground and not begin able to come down. had to get my guy on the ground to pull the rope right round and put it up the other way.

i also got a roofers kit (2 carabinas , mechanical ascender, 15m of 15mm nylon rope, 3m of webbing and a 2m webbing loop) for $30 all i need tog et now is a figure 8 and some more rope.

thanks for all your help guys and i will get u some pics soon


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