Getting caught up on this thread has been interesting. Lots of good discussions and some head scratching too
As I read through I typed up some running commentary.
There seems to be a real prejudice against change. This is human nature I quess. I bet we could transport back to the time
when Davey and Bartlett started to require their climbers to tie in instead of freeclimbing and hear all of the same lines. This was
back in the teens and twenties. Climbing is moving forward.
Why don't people trust mechanical climbing devices? Because they're metal? That's silly. The airplane I rode in last night is sure
complicated but it is the best thing going for long distance travel. How long would it take to walk from Dallas to Minneapolis?
Isolating limbs isn't always easy. Even if climbers used SRT to access the canopy and then changed over to DdRT they would
save a lot of time. I've climbed for close to thirty years and have spent the last five or so working the bugs out of SRT. I think
that I have an open, critical mind and look at all the pluses and minuses of change. The climbers that I've talked to that have
open minds have all understood the value of incorporating SRT into part of their climbing skills.
I made up a set of double headed Kong ascenders about five years before they made them from the factory. On mine, I had
only one handle, not the butterfly handles that Kong has made. The older, modular, Kong ascenders leant themselves to using
through bolts.
The nomenclature of SRT/DRT/DdRT came out of a discussion on the ISA forum several years ago. DdRT is when a single rope [or two tied together,effectively becoming one] are draped or doubled-over a limb and paired together for ascent. DRT uses two seperate ropes and anchor points. Arbos would call this double crotching.
Footlocking a doubled rope is sometimes easier for people. There is more rope to add friction to your grab. Once the climber
has their technique worked out they'll be able to FL a single just as easy.
There was a comment about the RADS being 2:1 and this wasn't efficient. Well, take a little time and look at a DdRT setup.
that is 2:1 ALL of the time. While you're stripping rope in and out, I'm moving around at twice the speed and effort. Certainly a
time/speed improvement there.
Over the weekend I played around a little with a friction hitch and slack tender for SRT. I think this is going to be a quest to find a cord/rope combination that works smoothly just like the quest for a split tail cord. There has got to be a combo that will grab and slide smoothly and not heat up so much.
Mike found one of the limitations of SRT. Since there is more rope in the system and a higher load at the TIP, there will be some rope movement. I've considered using a FC in thin barked trees if I thought that I might damage the bark. So far, I haven'r come across a tree where I've felt that I needed to do that. Hackberries in the spring will require a FC though.
Tom
