Smooth climbing

[Steve Bullman]

Welcome to the forum Joe, and thanks for posting.

 

Just took delivery of my spider jack this morning and looking forward to trying it out tomorrow on some big beech.

 

ps, hope you earnt some revenue from that vid, its a fantastic marketing piece

[Steve Bullman]

incidentally. the only thing that annoys me is the velcro strap is the wrong side for how i would have this set up....is this why you have yours set up with the 2 krabs so you can use it left handed?

[joe into trees]

You're right Steve. One of the reasons for the two carabiner/dyneema sling setup is that it gets the rope out of the way of the off hand. Also means you don't have to keep undoing and redoing the velcro, stops the spiderjack from walking off around the lower crab and means you don't have crowded biners which the splice has to be squeezed onto.

 

You can the replace the velcro with a small metal ring or leather loop or something. Also the option for replacing the dyneema strop with a breakaway energy absorber, so the whole system has built-in fall arrest.

 

Will post a photo when I get back onto my own computer.

[Danny Boy]

hey!

 

when did the world move up from prussik loops?

 

 

 

makes me feel like a caveman...

all joking aside, that was a very good demonstration of climbing.

 

is there some sort of basic guide to using different ascenders/descenders any where?

i'm all for making life easy, but am struggling to think how i'd even start looking into the various climbing systems available, never mind trying them out.

[Mark Bolam]

Welcome Joe.

 

Is that some kind of self-coiling pack for your lanyard on the back of your harness? I'm well interested in that!

 

Not having 3m of lanyard coiling round my legs may make my life a little easier at times!

[Ian Flatters]

Cheers for the picture joe. Just watched that monster one, starfoot sampling how high was that?

[Rupe]

hey!

 

when did the world move up from prussik loops?

 

 

 

makes me feel like a caveman...

all joking aside, that was a very good demonstration of climbing.

 

is there some sort of basic guide to using different ascenders/descenders any where?

i'm all for making life easy, but am struggling to think how i'd even start looking into the various climbing systems available, never mind trying them out.

 

Start with a pulley under your prussik and see how you get on with that to start with.

[Ian Flatters]

Set my spiderjack2 up today only thing that i thought sucked a bit was i had to pull 45m of line through it to get it to the working end. Felt much smoother than my lockjack but i only played around a tiny oak with it and was very safe being a new thing to learn.

 

Oh the hand over hand ascend bit felt weird too.

[Rupe]

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for all the kind words. I couldn't work out why the video had so many hits, until someone referred me to this forum and it all became clear. Thanks for watching the clip!

 

There were a couple of things I wanted to reply to. You guys are right that I've climbed that tree plenty of times, and it's one that shows the spiderjack to best advantage. It's a pretty well-known training tree, and the particular circuit in the clip is one I've seen a lot of very good (world-class) climbers go round. It would be really difficult to do with a VT or other hitch at the same speed as the spiderjack: too much taking in slack.

 

The spiderjack has some disadvantages (poor running when the tail is deflected over a branch would be a problem in a lot of UK trees; I have not found the inability to attach midline to be a major issue) but descending in mid-air is not one of them. It allows considerably faster and longer jumps/descents than a hitch - in fact after 2 years of climbing on it I still haven't found the limit.

 

As Angus mentioned, I do use the SJ for all of my regular work. Even for some of the really

as well (not so pretty as the other video). It has some drawbacks. The SJ doesn't like the rope not being parallel, so when you are tied round the stem or close to a large branch it doesn't work as well.

 

The only other thing that was mentioned was the use of two carabiners. It isn't a standard setup. The two biners are connected by either a dyneema tape sling or a breakaway lanyard. It means you don't have to keep doing the velcro up, and also gives better access to the spiderjack body for your left hand. There's a halfway decent photograph of the setup near the bottom of this page.

 

Take care and safe climbing

 

 

Just watched again from the start. Nice mid air descent!! Missed that the first time!

[Ross Smith]

im gonna design or copy what ive seen of the retracting lanyard and distribute under the name.. ..????? wait for it yeeesss STEIN