Climbing for winch cable

[kav]

Having a chat a work the other day. Would we need to have full cs38 to spike up trees to put winch cable in? Went on HSE safety day and was shown to use ladder, ratchet strap to tree, put on climbing harness and helmet, take up cable and strop to tree.

Seems a lot easier when we have had climber in spikes rather than lugging ladder etc around the woods

Cheers

[treequip]

Throw line and rope weigh even less

[CJM]

Throw line and rope weigh even less

Spot on. That way is faster and your less likely to damage the winch cable. Throw line up pull rope through and just timber hitch it to the bottom the use a double bow line to attach the cable it'll take you under 5 mins to do that. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

If your winch is good and trees arent massive I just put the cable on at head height

[arniecardigan]

When I did my winching course years ago we only ever put the winch as high as we could reach! I've never had a problem doing this and most of my winching is with a 5tonne Tirfor which amazes me on a regular basis at just what it will pull over!

[kav]

Throw line and rope weigh even less

 

Yeah you are right bit trickier on some of the poles with no lower branches/or bushy connys, i'd better start practicing.

To be honest most of the time we just rig at head height too, just now and then its nicer to go a bit higher.

Thanks for the replies

Kav

[arniecardigan]

If it's only occasionally you need it higher why not get a set of telescopic ladders, nice and light and compact and will add an extra 12ft to the height without going overboard with all the elf and safety stuff!!

[Shane]

The higher you go - the better the leverage BUT you can run the risk of snapping the top out if you go too high.

 

All obvious stuff, really - we generally go for half way and a bit more, using throw-lines ,ladders.

 

Shouldn't someone on the crew have CS38 anyway?

[kav]

Yeah if we are on tree job 38/39 all the way but if we are in the woods not always.

Can you recommend a study(ish) telescopic ladder? I have seen one but it looked a bit cheap and nasty. My mate was looking for one to keep in truck for greasing timber crane.

Cheers