60 Years Old and Still Foot Locking?!

chris_girard

chris_girard

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Jul 28, 2007
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Gilmanton, N.H.
OK, so what I want to know is, how many of you guys know any older climbers in their 60's who still foot lock, or do you think by that age they realize that there are easier ways to ascend a tree?

I have never liked to foot lock (personally), even when I was younger and just see it as a body wrecker for those that use it year in and year out. I would actually love to see it taken out of the ISA TCC, but that will never happen. Am I being too harsh, or am I missing something?

Thoughts?
 
I dunno Chris, uhhhh... what do you mean, "body wrecking,"? In other words: what particular joints/parts give you a bad time when you foot-lock? I'm only five years younger than you, and haven't had a bad time of it so far... but... maybe I'm not all that far behind. :(
 
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I would say elbow, knees and hips in particular see more wear and tear when foot locking. Maybe this is for longer ascends??
 
I still rely on footlocking and I'm 57, but the Wraptor looks good though:D
Trick with footlocking for me is to stay below 200lbs body weight. I'm down to 194 at the moment, not bad for pre-season shape.
Don't think I'd ever get back to my ripped hand faller weight of 177:(
 
chris_girard said:
I would say elbow, knees and hips in particular see more wear and tear when foot locking. Maybe this is for longer ascends??
Click to expand...

I get the knee thing.... Man my knees are jacked. Still... a long day in the spurs gives me worse trouble (which really isn't all that bad) than my most heavy day of footlock pruning ever did.
 
Well Willard, I never thought I'd see sub 150 again either, but here I sit at 145 these days...you can do it if you care to. Tough people who life in tough environments can do anything they decide to do.
;)

I gave up footlocking when my hip began to give up the ghost nearly a decade ago, but frankly SRT always did make more sense in most of my big tree/old growth work. Today, my titanium hip would footlock like a 20something year olds', but I'm smarter now, and not only have several well developed SRT tools, but also a Wraptor, blessed man that I am :). So for me, footlocking is far in the rearview mirror. I can still teach it to a newbie climber, and always include it in a climber class...but day in and out?...naw:D.
 
On the rare occasion I need to I still will but don't do it enough to suffer any from it. Just another tool in the bag...
 
PCTREE said:
I consider myself lucky that I never learned to foot lock!
Click to expand...

I sorta made a point not to learn.

Rope walking SRT for short stuff. Wraptor for tall stuff, and not that tall of stuff. Its the miles at least as much as the years.

I finished brushing out a 110' hemlock tonight, just before pulling out of the job. If I had to go up tomorrow to work it down, I wouldn't break a sweat doing it.
 
Around here I can climb any hardwood tree drt with 200' of 1/2" line footlocking dynamic on a Blakes.
May take twice as long as static on double rope but I get up there eventually with less effort and don't have to change over to another climbing system when I arrive at work position ....just go right to work.
 
There will be an open ascent coming soon , maybe as early as next year for the competitions.
I like footlocking but for access I use srt as its just more ergonomic .I think its a good thing to learn but as a sustainable means of access I don't really think so , I do a bit of training about a month before a competition , then leave it.
I found that it was a great challenge learning footlcking and now I'm only half decent . Big ups to any of the lads in there 60s who are using it for access .
 
I dunno. Secured footlock is antiquated, but its part of our history. I hold out for tradition sometimes just to be nastalgic. But I dont do it often. There are definately better ways to access a tree.

It kinda reminds me of one day when I was just a weeee private in the Army. We had an old Vietnam era Master Seargent in our company that should have retired in the 80's and was as crazy as the day is long. One day we were in the day room getting a class on the M-60 machine gun from one of the new platoon leaders when Master Seargant Jackson walks in and asks. "Whatcha doin PL?" The PL tells him that he is giving a class on the M-60. MSG Jackson says, "The M-60? That thing is a piece of shit!"
The PL says. "But master seargent, the M-60 is a battle field proven weapon" MSG Jackson takes a sip of his coffee and calmly says. "Oh yeah? Well so is the musket, but we dont use that Mother Fucker no more, now do we?"

Class dismissed.;)
 
HolmenTree said:
Around here I can climb any hardwood tree drt with 200' of 1/2" line footlocking dynamic on a Blakes.
May take twice as long as static on double rope but I get up there eventually with less effort and don't have to change over to another climbing system when I arrive at work position ....just go right to work.
Click to expand...

You sure as hell don't get up there with "less effort" when you foot lock.
That is kinda the whole point of SRT.
Less effort that foot locking.
 
Yeah blowing hot air again eh?
It's obvious you never evolved from the old school secured footlock technique as I did almost 20 years ago in the picture below.
The Blakes split tail method I learned later was a breeze to footlock on. Tried and trusted.

20150327_123921.jpg
 
So I guess all the rest of the world's climbers has switched to SRT because we are not as smart as you.
 
I don't really know.

I just got irritated at Willard for touting an obsolete method as being superior, because he hasn't tried any of the new stuff.
 
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