90m tall rainforest canopy . . .what gear would you use?

[WoodED]

Hey guys, I’m one of the organisers of universal canopy exploration, a research group based out of Plymouth University. We carry out a lot of our work in the tropics were the trees reach upwards of 90m. Home - Universal Canopy Exploration

 

We’ve all devised our own favourite techniques and bits of kit to make this possible. I’m a big believer in not carrying any dead weight; as a consequence I like all my gear to be usable for a number of purposes’.

 

We use SRT to gain access to the canopy, often 70m from the ground, so an efficient and comfortable system is crucial. Once gaining the canopy I change over to Ddrt to move around freely, I tend to use both ends of the rope to give so points of attachment at all times.

 

The question is . . . if money was no option what gear and setups would you use in this situation?

 

I’ve added a load of pics to give you something to get excited about. . .

 

an 088 haha, only joking, as for a setup im not sure

[scottythepinetree]

Buckingham titaniums and velcro straps. Gotta have the metal inserts though.

[kevin bingham]

I'm going to recomend the singing tree rope wrench. Maybe use it in conjunction with the uni. The uni would be better for long ascents and the wrench would give you control on the descent and preserve the life of the uni. No changeover, and also none of the other gear you would need.

[browncow]

Also love to climb huge trees, 91m biggest but most amazing was 81m, purely for self research . i use the Rocket system but we changed the way the bungee works. all equipment needed is in this Pic and once you get too top, just need to take of mini traxtion and left foot ascender and right foot ascender.

 

Hope that helps and simplify things

 

Cheers MOG

 

Hey bro, so are you only attaching to the rope with one ascender (mini traxion) for life support?

 

Looks like a nice simple setup, how does the traxion differ from, say a croll or other toothed ascenders and how do they perform when shock loaded?

[Scottish]

I think once you get the hang of rope walking the classic frog style of ascending is a waste of time. Personally I will use a simple ascender + footloop, croll and a pantin and rope walk everything, and I quite enjoy it. It's just a super simple system, which works. Winner.

I wouldn't think a rope wrench would have much of a place in an SRT system, it adds friction into the system, which would seem a bit rash.

[Mesterh]

I would use a 89m ladder.

 

Although I would obviously be busy err doing something very important to my climbing gear while the ladder was being erected.

[DrewB]

The wrench will only friction for descent-its practically not there on the ascent phase. Im not 100% sold on the wrench for work purposes but in the right situation its an awesome bit of gear. Example was today working on some stems-choking the rope off up high and descending on single line and then reascending single line with no change over.

[Scottish]

Without turning this into another rope wrench thread, fair enough. I'm not 100% sold either, though I like what it does, and it seems useful. It'll be a while before I change my SRT kit to put a rope wrench (or anything else) in it however. If it aint broke, don't fix it.