Son of a BEESTING!

[lumberjack]

I wish the weather would clear up and the ground dry up so I could be caught up on work and enjoy it more.

 

[bill22]

If you're not going to climb on the rope, then don't trash it. Put it away some place safe and dry. Then when you pull it out in 3-4 years you'll say to yourself "Damn, this is a nice rope! I'm going to start using it again!"

I'm sorry if some experts here disagree, but IMO lifelines are a lot more durable than some of us give them credit for. I cannot imagine a lifeline being damaged to the point of becoming unusable simply by being squished under a truck tire. We abuse our ropes more than that burning down out of a tree on a hot friction hitch. If the rope is damaged to the point of being unsafe then there will be a noticeable lump, flat spot, tear, melted spot or whatever indicating damage to the rope. Fibers are either broken or they're not. We use ropes with a breaking strength of 40-50 times our climbing weight and then freak out if we get a dirty spot on it or if somebody steps on it. I know it doesn't make it right, but the first guy I climbed for used to use his hank of lowering line as his wheel chock for his truck or chipper. It got run over on a regular basis.

+1 here Brian. I use the hell out of my ropes,time is money as we all know and I don't get paid until the climbing aspect of a job is done. I burn out all the time,foot lock, hell sometimes I use the tail end of my rope to lower small limbs.I guess I'm in trouble too.

 

[Burnham]

Bill, I'd suggest that all those activities are normal in the wear and tear we expect from our ropes. They're designed for it. I don't think we can put being driven over in the same category, can we?

 

[bill22]

Not sure,i don't think the rope would be hurt all that bad, but I'd check every inch of it to decide whether to use it again, biners i say chuck them.

 

[PCTREE]

My hitchclimber got run over also, as my groundie "watched" me back up. As stated before I am a cheapskate so rather than pitch it I just spliced a 2-3" loop that I clip both biners into so if it does break Im still safe, FWIW Ive been on it for 2 years or so....

 

[SkwerI]

It seems biners would show evidence of being tweaked by not opening and closing smoothly. The slightest bend will affect how the gate works. If the gate still works perfectly then I doubt very seriously that they were stressed. Same with the pulleys, look for evidence of being bent or tweaked. If everything is square and straight and works perfectly then they aren't damaged.

 

[Burnham]

Probably so....

 

[PCTREE]

Shoot for me $40 to replace the biners and $1 of cordage to back up the HC and no worries.......

 

[Burnham]

That's what it boils down to, really. Trusting your life support gear is pretty important when the situation get's sketchy.

 

[No_Bivy]

buy all new gear...then break the old shit annd report back....just for fun ya know

 

[Ryan]

Would you guys ditch a lowering rope that got in between a load and the trunk during negative blocking? Would it be more or less stress on the rope, compressing a small portion of it with great force, while it's under a load? I'd probably keep using rope that was run over with a truck tire in mud but I might not know any better either.

 

[squisher]

It's decided then. Send the gear up to me and I'll check it out for ya.

 

[canadiantreeman]

Ha. I just cleaned and inspected all of it again, and it looks aight to me. The biners have been through 2 seasons already so I'll be replacing them shortly, but it seems the hitchclimber, rope and cordage is OK. I think I just got a little worked up because it seemed worse than it is, and I felt slighted by the guys for: a) not being up front about what happened by telling me and; b) actually running the gear over. Oh, well. Lesson here is always take my gear off the truck and put it away, because there are idiots about.

 

[bill22]

I've never had a rope ran over, I've had a couple idiots cut my rope while cutting limbs and brush, i also had a guy put and end a chipper. On all three accounts i got them to buy me a new rope as well as pay me.

 

[SkwerI]

When I was climbing I made a hard and fast rule that NOBODY ran a saw around my lifeline or lowering line. If a limb came down on a rope then it was untied and the rope cleared first, before the saw was fired up. Every single time I heard "But I won't cut your rope!" and my reply was "You're right, everybody says that and I still want my rope cleared before you fire the saw."

It's been over 10 years since the last time anybody has cut one of my ropes.