Free climbing?

[John Paul Sanborn]

A pole saw is a tool that can be used or abused, just like any other.

John Ball had some stats on fatalites in his talk for the TCI Expo. Seems that the majority of climber fatalites happend when recrotching.

Instructors talk about the "what if" in free climbing; "What if you sneez", "What if you had a bad sandwitch and loose bodily control". "What if you cut yourself and flinch"...

Statistically, three points of contact are good for occasional use, but the odds are against you if you do it all the time.

Oh BTW, in the tree care industry (Residential/comercial and municiple) there are around 250,000 tree workers. Around 500 die each year.

 

[Lumberjack]

On some trees that I am trimming I free climb to the top and set my rope, then rapel down and start working. Most of the time I am below 40-50 foot and the canapy is dense enough to have multiple routes to the top.

However I wouldn't run a chainsaw off the ground without being tied in to much can happen.


Carl

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Lumberjack,

Your sig reads:

God you put it up, God grant me the power to take it down, safely.

You seem to be asking God to put a hand underneath you when, not if, you fall. This could spin off into a really interesting religious discussion. Is it your God's responsibility to be there to take care of your mistakes? I'm more of a free-will thinker. It's my job to take care of myself. This is especially important if I ever make a conscious decision to do something unsafe. You have the "power" to not free climb, does that take your God off the hook to tend to your "safety"?

Dr. Ball speaks of the area above 40 feet in the trees as the "Dead Zone" Are you familiar with that connection to Himilayan mountaineering? Above a certain alitude the human body deteriorates. For tree climbers, 40 feet is not a survivable fall. Even if you were to be lucky enough to bounce off branches on the way down, this water filled bag of bones we call a body will be destroyed.

It pains me to hear people boast about their disregard for simple, basic, safety practices. Setting an ascent line or double lanyarding adds only minutes to a climb. There's no profit being made in the hospital or the morgue.

The only rule is there is an exception.

Let's set aside workplace rules like ANSI Z133 for just a moment. Aren't there some higher rules that we should abide by? How about the responsibility we all have to our family and friends? If we are killed or injured, the effect is felt by others too.

Tom

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'm tied in 99% of the time, but I have no problem with the 3 point system.

 

[Lumberjack]

Why would I fall, I free climb only when I can do so saftely. If I can't easily climb it then I set the rope from the ground. I meant that as no boast, and I am aware of the 40 foot death zone, which was a recent article in TCI mag.

Furthermore if you don't have confidence in free climbing any tree, then by all means use the double lanyard technique, I use a lanyard to tie in when I am setting the rope. But if you feel that you must be tied in to set a rope or do anything off the ground that makes me think that you have become to dependent on your equipment to perform even the simpilist of tasks. When you are climbing up to the attic, do you tie in? If you are climbing a ladder on/ in a building, would you tie in. I have confidence that I can support my weight on a stationary ladder, if I am just going up or down, not working.

How do you clean your gutters?

You said is it my God's responsiblity? First off there is only one God, and there are many gods, see the difference. I think that when I die, I die, it won't matter if I am tied in with 3 lanyards, when my time is up, it is up. That isn't to say that I think that I am invencible until then, and I do practice many saftey procedures and techique. I fill comfortable climbing some trees, mostly oak and the like where the canopy is dense enough to easly climb.

Yes, if I died then it would effect many more people than just myself.

 

[rborist1]

:Eye:

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

We had a laugh at our house the other day. Three of us slipped and fell on the carpeted steps, in three seperate incidences.
Humidity, rushed lifestyle, coincidence, I don't know.
It applies to this thread, I think, because you can slip and fall anytime.
If you tie in 99% of the time, then you slip and fall during that 1%, you will feel pretty stupid for tying in all those other times and still falling to your death.
I can't help but think back to Tex's abuse of MB. He is like a train wreck.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by Mike Maas

I can't help but think back to Tex's abuse of MB. He is like a train wreck.

Yes, that must be why I'm going into my third decade of treework.
One of these days I'll be as good as you guys.
I can only hope!

 

[rborist1]

:Eye:

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by MasterBlaster
Yes, that must be why I'm going into my third decade of treework.

I know a guy who is on his third decade of getting drunk every day at a bar, and driving home. Not one DWI.

This leads me to believe that it is perfectly safe to drink and drive, at least if you are one of those rare individuals like this guy I know and using MB's almost infallible logic.

 

[MasterBlaster]

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Seems like MB lives on a planet that no one here wants to visit..............

 

[MasterBlaster]

We're missing one person....

Must be asleep.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Originally posted by MasterBlaster
We're missing one person....

Must be asleep.

Must be your clone. But then...........

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by Rich Hoffman
Must be your clone. But then...........

TWO OF US!!!

 

[Stumper]

I use to freeclimb a lot in my youth. I was working on low, spreading trees that were easy to "walk up". I felt more secure than if I were climbing a well-set ladder. I WAS more secure than on a ladder but...........I discovered lanyards and quit freeclimbing. I hadn't discovered split tail systems yet so I was unsecured at times when resetting my lanyard but not while moving. Above 30' I would untie and retie my climbing line leapfrogging with my lanyard so that I was never unsecured and not more than 3' above my tie in when recrotching. It slowed me down but I felt it was necessary for safety. With split-tails and a lanyard there is no sense in freeclimbing IMO. Funny thing about accidents-they usually happen unexpectedly and over some stupid detail that could have been dealt with easily. I still freeclimb occassionally-up to having my tootsies 4 feet above ground level. Above that level even an apple merits a saddle and tie in!:angel:

 

[mikecross23]

'Bout 3 yrs ago, before I started educating myself in tree care methods, I was in the very tip top of a small pine. At about 65 feet up I unclipped and was flipping my buckstrap around the next branch when I heard a crack. Instantly the limb I was standing on fell out from underneath me and I started to fall. I was lucky. My right gaff (wasn't burried in the wood) slid down the tree about a foot and stuck and I got my left arm around the pole saving my life and changing my climbing forever.

I DO NOT come untied from the tree anymore. My opinion on free climbing is DO NOT do it. It ain't worth it. I'm too young to die.

Be safe you's guys!

-Mike-

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Tom Dunlap
For tree climbers, 40 feet is not a survivable fall. \
Maybe so, maybe not. I fell 35 feet onto a driveway along with the part of the tree I was tied to. Had a beautiful 6 months vacation courtesy of WI. Still, I wouldn't recommend it.
It pains me to hear people boast about their disregard for simple, basic, safety practices.
It's Sunday morning so it's time, all set off by Tom the Torch, calling a simple innocent statement a "boast".
If I was like mb and lumberjack, free-climbing a small % of the time, I wouldn't say it in a public forum, where innocents may be lurking, and bombastic dogmatists abound.
It's like when my teenage students ask if I ever used illegal recreational substances back in the 60's. I tell them I don't recall, but if I ever did my memory would be so wounded I couldn't recall.
Setting an ascent line or double lanyarding adds only minutes to a climb.
Minutes add up, time is $. Still, I used to free-climb more before exploring the double-lanyard system. That allows you to spin about freely as you ascend, the better to :Eye: the tree. Also you can clean out deadwoodas you go, creating an inner drop zone for branches you cut above to fall through. This often saves the minutes lost staying secured.
There! Is everybody happy?
Rich, mb is not alone and has no clone. Conformism is un-
American; it's for lemmings and losers.

 

[rbtree]

I ran into an old acquaintance recently. He has the misfortune to fall 90 feet out of an alder some 20 years ago. He landed in the soft forest floor and survived. It took him years before he went back up into tall trees.

A few years before that, on the way back to the shop, he had been drinking, and the crew wouldn't ride with him. As well, he had picked up a girl, perhaps a hooker. While making the big turn off the freeway to the shop, whilst getting a ********, he rolled the chip truck. Feeling chagrined, he went to the owner's house, and pleaded to keep his job. It worked. True story!

Another true story, just a half mile south of that location, when I worked for that company, someone took a pot shot our chip truck from the side...from the looks of the impact, dead center on the windshield, it could have been double ought buck shot.

Open this link only at your own risk...it is "risque"

http://flash.trojangames.co.uk/tgames/movies/movie2.html

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Th fatality rate per thousand in our industry is worse the firefighters.

Climbing trees has enough inherant risks to it.

Part of John Ball's talk is that if we can remove a few risky practices from our regular procedures, as a group, we can greatly impact the annual death rate.

To's probably got the link, but If I remember right, unsecured climbing ranks higher in cause of death then electrical contact. This includes unsecured retie and free climbing.

Yes there are exceptions to rules, ANSI will allow free climbing if it is safer then not.

He also defined the " fail safe " concept. It does not mean that it is safe from failure, but that in the case of failure you have a high probability of being safe.

Maybe my math is off, but if the rate of death in the population of 250,000 is 500 that means a 500:1 chance of dieing every year. Why would you not want to do everything you can to beat the odds?