How do you all climb?

[Mass tree guy]

fast furious taking chances?


just kidding..

I'm talking about do you use what we call a split tail or bowline and a blakes hitch?

Is there any other way to climb? Some guys at work talk about climbing on a taughtline hitch..No idea what that is..that guy was 75 years old and worked for your office @ Bartlett for 50 years.. no lie...dude used to spray ddt and paint tree limbs..

I use a split tail which is a 4 foot line attached to a locking caribeaner or spreader snap...I like it because you can quickly and easily change the location of your climbing line with a few motions. It maybe faster but I have seen some of the best climbers use bowline and blakes..

thoughts?
comments?
concerns?

 

[ozzy42]

Climbed on a blakes and bowline for a lot of years .
Just switched to a split tail a few months ago.

Made my own with a 4ft piece of climbing line
and a steel rope snap to see if I liked it.

I liked it .

Now I'm using 10 mm eye2eye and a brass clip for slack tending on
an alumimum tri lock krab ,terminating to an aluminum rope snap tied in
with a bowline with a yosemite . I don't care for a trip fisherman knot unless I want it to stay put.The bowline works for me with the yosemite leaving the end of the rope parrelell to the end of the rope.

Also using same set up with 8ft of arborplex for a lanyard,only terminating it with a tripple fisherman to the rope snap.

Amost forgot .Both friction hitches are VT .


Old dog learning some new tricks.

 

[tr33thri11s]

tautline is a friction hitch tied with two wraps under two wraps over. The tail exits opposite the line coming from the bowline tied to the snap. It is a useful hitch but tends to roll (tighten up) more than the blakes.

 

[Tree Pig]

24" piece of HRC (still havent tested the 8mm beeline bought last year) tied with distel and petzl micro pulley. 1/2" Arbor Boss climb line with rope clip on working end williams ball lock biners on running end.

 

[ronnyb]

Lockjack sport

 

[fishercat]

I tried the VT.............

too complicated.

I went back to a Blake's with split tail.So much faster and simpler.

 

[ozzy42]

too complicated.

I went back to a Blake's with split tail.So much faster and simpler.

It can be a little finicky ,but I wanted to use a spliced eye split-tail ,and didn't feel safe using a blakes with a smaller diameter [10 mm me thinks] chord .

Probably is safe ,but it just looked wrong when I tied it ,so started working with the VT.

 

[treeseer]

tautline is a friction hitch tied with two wraps under two wraps over. The tail exits opposite the line coming from the bowline tied to the snap. It is a useful hitch but tends to roll (tighten up) more than the blakes.

not necessarily; i do 3 or 4 under counterclockwise 2 over clockwise. control is fine; no rollout and seldom binds. works fine; so often repeated it is automatic. works with 3/8 (old days) or 10-11 mm.

tried vt then forgot; considering splittail again so i can relearn it with my 20 yr old who wants to use a micropulley, pulling his pa into the future. :blush:

 

[Mike Cantolina]

too complicated.

I went back to a Blake's with split tail.So much faster and simpler.

You might want to try a knut or a distel.

 

[Mikecutstrees]

Split tail and blakes here on a eye splice...... Mike

 

[RAG66]

I'm sure most will not like it but mostly I climb old school flipline on straight up spars for removal. If I do preservation work (thin & prune, ETC.) I'll climb on Samson velocity with bailout prusik cord in the form of the VT. with slack tender pulley on Petzl william carabiner. I do a lot of stuff the old way, not for everyone but effective, and I feel confident in my gear.

 

[pdqdl]

I never did the Blakes, except for a few times. I went from Prussic to VT.

By the way, according to the Boy Scouts, the taut line hitch is one under and two over. I learned it out of the book 40 years ago. I'll agree that an awful lot of tree climbing books will tell you a taut line hitch is 2 under & two over.

Damn. I can't find by ABOK...

 

[rarefish383]

I never did the Blakes, except for a few times. I went from Prussic to VT.

By the way, according to the Boy Scouts, the taut line hitch is one under and two over. I learned it out of the book 40 years ago. I'll agree that an awful lot of tree climbing books will tell you a taut line hitch is 2 under & two over.

Technically the Scouts are correct. If I run 1 under 2 the knot will slip, so I use 2 and 2. I still call it a taughtline, Joe

 

[treeslayer]

I never did the Blakes, except for a few times. I went from Prussic to VT.

By the way, according to the Boy Scouts, the taut line hitch is one under and two over. I learned it out of the book 40 years ago. I'll agree that an awful lot of tree climbing books will tell you a taut line hitch is 2 under & two over.

Technically the Scouts are correct. If I run 1 under 2 the knot will slip, so I use 2 and 2. I still call it a taughtline, Joe

this ain't the boy scouts.............Tautline is 2 up and 2 down. been that way for 30 years in the tree business as I've seen it.

 

[tree MDS]

this ain't the boy scouts.............Tautline is 2 up and 2 down. been that way for 30 years in the tree business as I've seen it.

What does the slayer use??

After yesterday, I'm thinking the vt isnt working for me... maybe I'll just try the swab for simplicity next climb. I dont mind a little tightening up on the knot. Maybe I'm not getting it right, but the vt does seem too finicky imho.

With the taughtline, I always went with two on the bottom, and one on top -quicker to tie and untie. Works good for my weight (160-165) too. When I started we used to make our own lanyards with the TL, I would use two on the bottom, and two on top for those.

 

[RAG66]

I found the VT to be finiky because I made a mistake in the process of set up. The braids were not kept in the correct order. The one that starts from the top needs to stay on the top of the braid all the way to the finish, other wise it wants to shift and unwind. The only way I figured this out was much frustration, finaly looking carefully at the picture and practicing 3-4 times. The other contributing factor was the firmness of the prusik cord, in relation to the climbing line. The relationship of the two is purely climber specific, due to weight and type of tree and your preferences for speed and control.

 

[tree MDS]

I found the VT to be finiky because I made a mistake in the process of set up. The braids were not kept in the correct order. The one that starts from the top needs to stay on the top of the braid all the way to the finish, other wise it wants to shift and unwind. The only way I figured this out was much frustration, finaly looking carefully at the picture and practicing 3-4 times. The other contributing factor was the firmness of the prusik cord, in relation to the climbing line. The relationship of the two is purely climber specific, due to weight and type of tree and your preferences for speed and control.

I'm thinking its just too much really.... screw them damn braids!

Thanks for the input though.

 

[tree md]

You've got to play around and tweak the VT to fine tune it for your personal weight and climbing style. I wasn't crazy about it at first either but I kept playing with it, adjusting the length of my prussic cord, trying different slack tending devices and trying different combinations of coils and braids before I got it dialed in. Another factor is the prussic cord needs time to break in before it really starts to work optimally. That has been my experience with HRC anyway.

I am sure glad I stuck it out with the VT because it is absolutely the sweetest friction hitch I have ever used. After I got mine dialed in it is super responsive. I am using 8mm HRC on Poison Ivy and using a boat swivel snap to tend slack. Works great for me.

This is the only pic I have of my climbing knot. Can't really inspect it closely but you can get an idea of what I use.

 

[tree md]

Oh yeah, just for the record, I am using 4 coils and 2 braids on my VT. Was the best combo for me. Not sure how long my prussic cord is, I use tied eyes and just kept shortening my prussic cord by adjusting the tied eyes. I think I ended up around 22 inches but It's been awhile since I checked it. I'd recommend starting out with tied eyes until you figure out what length your prussic cord needs to be. Then you can buy spiced eyes if you want.

 

[tree MDS]

I'm using the hrc on safety blue, four coils two braids.

Maybe it does need to break in more... not sure whats going on with it, but I'm losing patience. I think I shortened the cord is down to 27" (center to center of eye to eye, with the hitchclimber), this helped with the sit back, but still doesnt want to bite consistently.

Thanks for the input md. I may not give up yet, but I am annoyed with it.