Lots of questions about footlocking

[Tree Machine]

Yep, cant say i tried sneakers but specialist boots do make our job a bit easier especially when moving through the crown, limb walks etc

.... climbing steep-to-vertical limbs, doing short footlock descents, heel-toe jams and just being on them all day. Try jamming sneakers into a tight 'V' crotch and see what you get. Toe and heel hooking. Being able to use tiny nubs or irregularities on a limbless spar as a foothold,even though 97% of your boot is not in contact with anything but air.

I'm not sure if it would be worse to climb without proper footwear, or without ugly gloves.

I'm sure many good climbers are out doing their thing without ideal footwear, and without sticky-palm hand protection. Climbing is, of course, possible, but you'll likely fall short of the full freedom of being able to be all you can be. Being able to do the really hard, crux moves, over and over, all day long, is really the tree climbing Nirvana, as well as optimizing our potential to be productive and disprove the theory that money doesn't grow on trees.

Once you're not having limitations imposed on you by sub-adequate gear, the only limitation becomes YOU. This is where we should be climbing; no handicaps. In this profession, you ARE just a short extension of your tools.

With climbing the tree, it's hands and feet, what's on them. With the actual tree care, it's all the other tools we use.

 

[Chuck R]

2 questions related to secured FL and MN competition

The guys at the MN competition last weekend who were fastest on the secured FL were the ones who didn't use ascenders. I think they were using a klemheist around a doubled line. Is that because ascenders slow you down, or knots are faster for better climbers, or ??? I'm thinking maybe they never put any weight on the loop and that's why they were so fast.

Is it proper from a safety standpoint to climb with FL and a prusik loop and no other backup? Is that the norm? These guys had a shoulder harness with a belay connected to a ground worker but I'm assuming that was to insure safety during competition.

I did see a guy ride his blake's almost to the ground during the rescue competition and saw an ascender pair slip a foot or two before the ground belay took over.

I'm new to this though so consider the source...

 

[Chuck R]

Hi Tom, pleased to meet

Chuck,

Did you compete or spectate? A really good way to learn more about climbing is to get involved at the TCC and judge or tech. Let George or Lynn know and they'll have you on the list for next year.

I'm not ready for competition yet as I would probably be a hazard to others. Did learn a lot though. May have seen Gary Albig but wouldn't have known it. A few of the officials had name tags but others did not.

 

[Tree Machine]

The guys at the MN competition last weekend who were fastest ...... or ??? I'm thinking maybe they never put any weight on the loop and that's why they were so fast.

Their hands were the ascenders. The prussik or (Kleimheist), was there in case of a slip, or for descent. The hitch had nothing to do with the ascent except act as security.


I had a Swiss guy absolutely smoke me at TCIA Baltimore. I didn't push the hitch up ahead of me, but I was using my hands as the ascenders like he was. My feet got tangled in the hitch at my feet near the end, and he got me by about a half a body length.

I was in tennis shoes, also.


See, that's not 'real life'. That's competition. Real life means schlepping a chainsaw and a Silky, maybe a pole pruner or a telescoping pole saw, and in the Summer a Camelbak UP THERE with you. You're wearing YOUR saddle,with your biners and slings.

Speed is not an issue in tree care. Overall swiftness and efficiency, YES, but flat-out speed on ascent, absolutely not even part of the reality.

Comparing 'tree care' and it's technical climbing to logging or climbing competitions, just know they are very much different worlds, with different goals and objectives and different results, hence different approaches.


That's all.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

I SRT all of the time so it's really simple to backup the ascender. This is not the norm though. There are many ways to back up or use two connections.

 

[Tree Machine]

True, Tom. Backing up the ascender is so essential. The feeling of knowing your gear and rigging is bombproof allow your total trust in it, to not only use it with authority, but to pursue the outer limits of it's uses.

Working off ascenders has always sorta been shunned, but if properly backed up, there is absolutely no reason not to. This is where using 11 mm lines and SRT becomes so do-able.

Tom, shall we take a side passage here and share a few ways to back up ascenders, show how, and why and tell what backing up ascenders means? This is good stuff. This, coming up, is what will revolutionize your climbing technique and approach. This fine detal will challenge all you kow about how tree climbong can be done.

Convention should be thrown out the window for the sake of being open to new possibilities. This is quite literally, the door to new-school climbing techniques, the juncture where old meets new, the very constricted center of the hourglass in the history tree climbing technique.

Tom, would you care to lead?

 

[Tree Machine]

Meanwhile, I'll go snap a few pictures.

Here's the link on the 'Backing up dual ascenders' thread.

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=17594&highlight=backing+dual

 

[Tom Dunlap]

This would be time to start a new thread.

My desktop has all of my pics and the better bookmarks. I had the hardrives reformatted and I'm in the process of reloading data. Until then, I use my laptop which is basically a word processor.

There is plenty of information about SRT ascent and backups here and on the other site. Spending a little time with the search feature would be a good start.

Every couple of weeks or so I here about someone else who is converting to working the crown via SRT. The first step is to convert to SRT for ascent. then, little by little make the move. There are so many advantages and almost no limitations to working the crown on SRT. It will probably take a generation or so for this to become mainstream. I'm looking forward to seeing the first climber in a chapter TCC to use SRT. Unless the judges are dialed into very progressive techniques it might be a battle for the climber to be allowed to SRT. If I'm anywhere nearby I would endorse the use.

 

[Tree Machine]

Whoops.... , here -------> http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=17594&highlight=backing+dual

 

[Tree Machine]

Tom, I am so totally in agreement with you, but I don't think it will take 10 years.

What it will take is the realization of how easy it is and we can do that right here, right now.

Now the noobs are going to eat this up. I mean, the super noobs, the guys who have very little-to-no experience with friction hitches. For the 99.999% of the rest of you who are enslaved to a climbing hitch as your means of controlling friction, you're gonna be a harder sell.



I guess this would be what is called a 'stretch'. This is where I try to convince you all to cash in your 100 year-old school of friction hitch convention. Yea, right. People don't generally like to change, or are resistant to re-considering their beliefs. Some would feel their manhood being challenged, or feel some form of mental defeat in adopting new methods in ascent and descent and work positioning. We don't like to give up the things we know and are comfortable with, even sometimes if it means changing for the better.

This might take some radical cage-rattling. New School Climbing.

 

[Tree Machine]

A good place to start, before showing how to back up ascenders, is in showing the differences between New School and Traditional Climbing. Let me know if I've missed any....

 

[Jim1NZ]

SRT is ok and yes i have tried it. What are the clear advantages in it though? Why is so great.
Yea i think its time for a new thread.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Look for an article on SRT here:

http://www.treebuzz.com/articles.php

There are some really informative threads on both sites about SRT.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Excellent link, Tom!

 

[Tree Machine]

Excellent link, Tom!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Whoa!

 

[Tree Machine]

Whoa, what?

 

[Tree Machine]

Like "whoa, we're derailing a perfectly good footlocking thread"?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Uhhh, chill pill, dude.

I 'spect this thread will survive.

 

[Tree Machine]

This is a really good thread, Mon.

Footlocking is kinda like the central dogma technique. Everything else revolves around controlling friction.

It's like the hub around which all other facets of climbing revolve. It's the method we use to completely defy gravity.