Lanyards?

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Tom Dunlap said:
Any rope that does not have an end on the ground has a stopper knot in it. This is supposed to be SOP isn't it? I guess not :cry:

My lanyard is no different than a short rope but I guess those other climbers weren't taught that or figured it out too late.
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Hey Tom, in the world of reality, accidents happen. A good example is when you said that you NEVER allow your hand saw to approach your flip line hitch cord.
In a perfect world this would work. But we are human.
I saw your cord set up, and my first thought was 'man thats some skinny cord to depend my life on'. Not weak skinny, but skinny skinny. One good swipe with something sharp, and that cord is cut!
If you worked on my crew, I prob. would not allow it.

The guys I know who did fall, one of them was an idiot (and I say this not because of him falling but other reasons), and the other is a very highly respected climber of many years whom we all know, respect, and look up to.

The idiot just plain didn't even think of tying a stopper knot in the end of his rope.

The other climber was descending, re-tying, descending, tying and untying knots, and then popped off the end of his climb line because he forgot to tie the knot at that critical point. Fatigue, end of the day, eager to finish, who knows.

The point is, if you base your thoughts on having everything work perfectly, without allowing for any margin of error, than bad stuff WILL happen. Not IF, but WHEN.

I am not busting your chops, just attempting to clarify how this seemingly stupid thing could happen.
 
Frans said:
I am not busting your chops, just attempting to clarify how this seemingly stupid thing could happen.
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No problem, Frans :) I didn't take it that way.

I've done some pretty stupid things and been lucky for the most part. Those near misses made my awareness much higher and my climbing much more systematic rather than casual.
 
The manner in which I melt the end of my rope (if it doesn't have a splice) does not easily allow a friction hitch to pass over the end. No, I don't tie a knot in the end. No, the melted end isn't foolproof and if I were really burning down the rope at high speed then I might possibly be able to pop off the end of the rope. But in normal conditions it works fine as a final safety stop if I don't notice that I'm at the end of my rope.

I had some asshole safety guy from Davey tie a knot in the end of my rope once while I was in a tree. He left, then the end of my rope got caught in a tight crotch. I had to pull my rope out of my perfect tie-in and recrotch lower in order to get enough rope to reach the stuck end and untie it. His frikkin knot cost me a lot of time and effort that day, and I will never allow that to happen again.
:X

But this thread is about lanyards and all my lanyards are always spliced at both ends. So the spliced eye would act as a stop. Regardless, I will never climb with a knot tied in the end of my rope.
 
Skwerl said:
I had some asshole safety guy from Davey tie a knot in the end of my rope once while I was in a tree. He left, then the end of my rope got caught in a tight crotch. I had to pull my rope out of my perfect tie-in and recrotch lower in order to get enough rope to reach the stuck end and untie it. His frikkin knot cost me a lot of time and effort that day, and I will never allow that to happen again.
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I had a similar thing happen to me 'cept substitute "douchbag college kid with all the certs and no knowhow" for "asshole safety guy from Davey";)
 
always a knot here. never got the tail stuck. on occasion ive asked a groundie to untie it but as soon as the end got to me i re tied it before i let it drop. i dont see why you wouldnt have one but thats just me:)
 
sotc said:
always a knot here. never got the tail stuck. on occasion ive asked a groundie to untie it but as soon as the end got to me i re tied it before i let it drop. i dont see why you wouldnt have one but thats just me:)
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good point, so when I do tie the knot I leave about six feet of tail so I have some leverage for going back up to retie.
 
OTGBOSTON said:
...when I do tie the knot I leave about six feet of tail so I have some leverage for going back up to retie.
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When I use a knot, which is only when in a tree where my rope won't get me down in one pitch, I leave the knot far enough up so I can take a footlock to scoot back up if'n I need to.

When I was first starting to climb trees for work I got to do an ash. It was the end of the day and it only needed like 2 or 3 easy limbs snipped off. So it became a, "let's all sit around and watch the new guy" thing. I headed up, using a coworkers rope he already had it out and set up about 20' up the tree. I got up, reset my rope higher so I could head out on the limb. When I was done I came down. My feet hit the ground and I did this thing that I've seen many a tree climber do once your feet hit the ground- you sorta grab your hitch and lean forward and down to give yourself some slack so you can unclip and all that. Well when I did that the tail went right through my hitch! :O His rope was an 80 footer, and mine was a 120'. I never even thought to check.

I got lucky, and it was a lesson well learned. I'm not afraid to set me a knot when I need to!

love
nick
 
OTGBOSTON said:
'bout 6 feet will do it;)

And I'm sure we've all seen it, if not done it ourselves.........the 'ol "I can just drop the least few feet" routine.....:D
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How about the 'out of rope, I'll come down hard, pop the rope off the hitch and drop the last 5 feet or so', trick?

Never really works out so good :|:
 
I usually have a couple loop runners/ biners on the back of my saddle. I can add a loop runner to extend the static end of my lifeline and give myself an extra 4' of rope. Or add 2 for 8 feet of rope. I do this to extend my lanyard when needed on big trees. Most of what I climb isn't especially big and I rarely need more than my 7' lanyard.
 
i do it all the time cause i often redirect through another crotch on the way down, never know when thatll add to much distance for my rope
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #93
So I've tried a VT adjuster out set-up like this on tachyon. It's a little long I know but had to ditch the prussic. Anyways I'm loving it except for when I park it all the slack falls through the VT, any simple way around this?
 

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Cool yah that's what I meant by 'kinda long' the whole hitch length/set-up will need to be revised but man oh man was it nice to use yesterday compared to the ole prussic. Still got some work to do though it would appear. So a distal should help to not let all the slack fall back through when it's all parked on one D.

Anyone want to throw up a good pic of a distal?
 
i dont run that setup squish, but maybe lose the pulley and run the tail through the "D"
 
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  • #98
distel=distal same thing? If so I've found Tophopper's pic in the first page of the thread, thanks.

Remember I live in isolation except for this interweb.:D
 
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OTGBOSTON said:
I'd swap out that beeline for a smaller length of cord and tie a distal hitch. VT is great for climbing 'cuz it won't bind up like a distal, but for a lanyard the distal works mo betta. (for me anyways)
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I'm in agreement...distel works better as lanyard adjuster, and keep in short as possible. It won't run on you then, Squish.

sotc said:
i dont run that setup squish, but maybe lose the pulley and run the tail through the "D"
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I do like mine with the pulley...works smooooother. And if you have large D's the hitch sometimes wants to invert through the D.
 
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