I've been base tieing with the very end of my rope, steel biner clipped around the up leg. I put a b'fly knot above the biner, tie in my rescue line which is on a fig 8 on another tree nearby, sort of modified the one Nick and Dave showed, one cut with little rope loss or unclip the biner.
I set it up because my groundie hubby is not a climber...
I need a new rope, looking at Vortex...its a bit wierd felling my XTC go sort of flat and then being stiff when I take it all down...anyway the XTC is a bit nicked in an inconvienient spot.
I still feel very cautious when I find myself ascending 'free' in the middle of a tree on one leg of rope, no branches or trunks to put a lanyard around, breathing rate increases somewhat...I had to go way to my TIP up yesterday to retrieve a throwbag which I got stuck in a little snag...
All the housekeeping I did on the ropewalker bits paid off yesterday, knee ascender is dialed in nice now.