More HH questions from a first time SRT'er

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  • #26
Had my first work climb with the HH yesterday, a small Euc no more than 30'.
I have to say it IS easier to thread through branches and bring the rope along.
It took a little while to be really confident to be on one leg of the rope, but it all held just fine. Next time will be better.
I have to shorten the little tether I made for self tending on ascent, too long and too floppy.

I wasn't totally happy with the route of my down leg...it was out from the trunk a fair bit and in front of some larger branches, but the tree had a bit of a lean, so that's where my throwline came down...

Do you chaps swing and slide at the same time on your HHs?
 
While we're commenting, I just changed to Hivee. What's the best hitch cord for this rope? I have been using Tachyon with Beeline.
 
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  • #30
Ha Nick...I do measured swings...not a bomber yet!
Mind you haven't really had the trees to do it in yet...
 
Whatever kind of swing it the HH, and SRT in general is much more suited to it than DRT. There is no change in friction at the tie in, or from any thing you might cross during the swing, nor is there any issue with the tail of your rope having to come up as you go down. Overall its much more predictable and therefore allows you to take a little less measure and a bit more swing.
 
I'm using 8mm Armor Pruss with a Knut hitch, on My Poison HiVee.
Prior to this I used 8mm Ocean Poly and 8mm Beeline.
The armor Pruss is my fave of the three and it's lasting longer.
 
thanks for the hitch info, guys.

Nick, you make good points about the greater predictability. It can be hard to see until its felt.
 
When I was stung by the bees, I had just bombed a bunch of really long, brushy limbs right onto my coiled rope. I wont say that I wouldnt have been able to descend DRT, but i had no issue on my HH.
 
I changed hitch yesterday to try a Knut. What a sweet knot but then it became a bit too 'sporty' and I had to retie it. After another hour it became scary again so I retied, again. This happened throughout the day and became too annoying so I won't be using the Knut again. I'm climbing on 11.7mm Poison HiVee.
Anyone else had this?
 
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  • #38
SO I did a 90' poplar takedown on Saturday...there is almost no way I could have done it efficiently either fliplining up or Drt. My HH paid for itself on that job!

It was interesting, I had spikes on, put my pantin on outside the spike, it worked ok.
My self tending chest thingy isn't working very well, I think I'll change to the clip on the left hand strap/distel/footloop I have to pull the HH up when ascending.

I confess to leaving the footloop hitch on during the whole job, I have a carabiner at waist height clipped into my bridge, so I actually have two attachments to the rope...eh, beginner paranoia.
 
B it was very strange for me for a while feeling only one rope. Now for descending I really dont care 2 hoots if Im on single or double but I can tell you when I spike back up a tree it is really nice having the HH follow you up the rope in single as opposed to pulling all that slack in double. I think if there was an easy way to retrieve a single line in tree I would Srt all the time. As it is I probably do 50/50 as Im too lazy to think about it.
 
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  • #41
Mate, it's a revelation! It's brilliant to have more options now, no way I could have done that poplar without a huge amount of wasted energy with what I had available before.
 
B it was very strange for me for a while feeling only one rope. Now for descending I really dont care 2 hoots if Im on single or double but I can tell you when I spike back up a tree it is really nice having the HH follow you up the rope in single as opposed to pulling all that slack in double. I think if there was an easy way to retrieve a single line in tree I would Srt all the time. As it is I probably do 50/50 as Im too lazy to think about it.

Paul, do you tend to trunk cinch up top, or basal tie, if one over the other?
 
Unless it is a removal, or I am doing any sort of large unpredictable rigging procedures, I use a base tie. To me it is one of the great advantages if srt and its impact on production. For removals, retrievabity is never an issue so I use a canopy tie. Or, Any time I set blocks or pulleys that I have to go back for anyway I might use a canopy tie. Other than that, I love the base tie. Sometimes ill set it up so that I will work one side of the tree then have my ground guy tie off my tail and untie the other side, ill just switch sides of the rope. When going tree to tree, the ground guy can give you more rope or take in rope if you have too much. A base tie gives a lot of options. One of the best things about wrenching.
 
Unless it is a removal, or I am doing any sort of large unpredictable rigging procedures, I use a base tie. To me it is one of the great advantages if srt and its impact on production. For removals, retrievabity is never an issue so I use a canopy tie. Or, Any time I set blocks or pulleys that I have to go back for anyway I might use a canopy tie. Other than that, I love the base tie. Sometimes ill set it up so that I will work one side of the tree then have my ground guy tie off my tail and untie the other side, ill just switch sides of the rope. When going tree to tree, the ground guy can give you more rope or take in rope if you have too much. A base tie gives a lot of options. One of the best things about wrenching.

I agree with you mostly there Kevin but I don't like the amount of bounce in the system by working on a base tie. Also, the TIP has to be lower in the tree if you base tie because the force is doubled. Therefore I prefer having an isolated TIP to reduce bounce and to set my TIP as high as possible.

Also, you mean "one of the best things about single line" This is a HH thread after all.
 
So true, Kevin.

Paul, the HH's ability to Ddrt to SRT to DdRT is great. Sometimes you still don't want to fight friction. If you are willing to forgo the potential advantages of a base-tie, you could do a mid-canopy re-directed anchoring of the tail. You can manage the installation and removal of the anchor point yourself, without ground support that would be required for installing a base-tie midway through the climb. Never done it myself, its either a canopy-tie with or without a pull-down rope of some sort, or its base-tie.


Chunking big wood down could conceivable land with the log against the trunk and basal-tied rope. severing the rope. This is where a mid canopy tie COULD POSSIBLY make sense. I'm thinking of a spreading tree. As Kevin pointed out, a climber can just change sided of the rope and re-connect to their saddle. Multiple high-canopy SRT redirects can give options that frictiony DdRT cannot.


Personally, I don't really worry about a groundie cutting me out of the tree with a basal-tie. Anybody that is cutting anywhere close to my base-tie is a skilled, experienced sawyer. Anybody not skilled and experienced DOES NOT cut near my rope.
 
I agree with you mostly there Kevin but I don't like the amount of bounce in the system by working on a base tie. Also, the TIP has to be lower in the tree if you base tie because the force is doubled. Therefore I prefer having an isolated TIP to reduce bounce and to set my TIP as high as possible.

Also, you mean "one of the best things about single line" This is a HH thread after all.

I wouldn't tie into an isolated 2" branch, but would redirect over them, with reasonable big crotches a reasonable distance below. I had a base-tie on a western red cedar redirected over a finger sized sprout, right at the branch collar, that I bounce tested (200+ pounds) and worked off of. When I got to the large co-dominant crotch that I thought was my redirection point, I found that I as redirected 1' about on the 1" cedar sprout.

I think a lot depends on the shape of the tree(s) and the scope of work. The highest possible choked TIP is best in some situations, like a large single stem conifer, but might be different is a huge spreading tree. OMTC (what's your name), have you seen some of Kevin's videos WAY out on tips of hardwoods?

What rope are you climbing on, and what do you weigh, geared up?

My experience has been on Poison Hyvee and HTP.
 
I find I can go higher in the canopy with a base tie because of extensive redirects. 2 x the weight is very rarely accurate because of the angles, as well as friction in the system. More important than the weight on the branches is the orientation of the weight. I find that with a base tie it is easier to orient forces in compression or down the stem. With a canopy tie the orientation of the force can be trickier to align with the grain of the wood and you can often end up bulling across the grain.
 
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  • #49
Keep it coming chaps...more interesting and valuable conversation!

I've been out to estimate a couple of jobs, and find myself looking at the access and feasability of the work in a different manner now...one pine in particular I was going to have to climb up bit by bit with my old system, now with the SRT option access is going to be much easier.
 
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  • #50
Can somebody paste the link to Jamie's foot loop/tether setup? I can't find it...
 
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