DrewB

Spent an awesome day yesterday strapped to a trauma bed with neck and head in abrace after my anchor point snapped out in an oak i was working on. The trees are known to be a bit dodgy and so we are heavily deadwooding them and inspecting for suspect branches. I chucked a throwline into and over the crown and got rope on adecent anchor. set my line over th main anchor (at least 2x size of my wrist) and also thrrough the rest of the crown to spread the weight over many branches. I tied the tail off to an adjacent tree to minimise the rope angles and proceeded to srt up into the crown. I chose srt for two reasons, its a lot smother on the anchor (compared to footlock or body thrust) so puts less strain on any potential weak points and its really boody hot at the moment and srt wins hands down for me in the heat! As i was going up i started to feel some weird sensation sin the rope and could tell the anchor was starting to giveway, so called my groundie to warn him that something might happen soon. I started to downclimb on the ascnders and then the anchor popped out and i hit the ground. As id gone through a lot of smaller branches, these absorbed some of the speed and also held the main anchor in the tree so it didnt follow me down and hit me.As soon as i hit the deck i moved away as i was expected a big oak branch to land on me-this quick movement is what they think done more damage than the fall. Im pretty sure if it footlocked or body thrusted (or attached a running bowline and single anchored to anchor point)in the tree the results would of been worse-or did tying at the base cause the accident? Anyway, im in ahead brace for 7 days and then back to hospital for more x rays to check its all good. climb safe out there:001_smile:

i hear ya bro..........

photo 2 is my footloop for my ascender in srt. I retrieve my rope guide by using the tail of my rope attached above my hitch or throw a throwline into the tree and attach it above my hitch.

Johno "borrowed" a shopping trolley for his gear at the NZ nats this year, class, should of got a prize for it i reckon!

no good for ya wallet either bro...... just give rich a call and he'll soon tell you whats in store

no idea. im pretty sure rich has got (or is getting) the whole teufelberger range. New stuff arrives daily so i imagine its a nightmare trying to get online straightaway-the new unicenders are on there way too..................

Treetools bro.

just think how much all that would of cost at a shop...........

Had to deadwood this oak today so thought id coronet it as its pretty poked anyway. I left one round stub cut and couldnt believe how much it stood out, the rest seemed to blend in so much better. Its going to be interesting to see the councils reaction. Much respect to MonkeyD et al for making his coro cuts look so natural as well, found getting a good position for cutting a bit of pain in places.

cheers tony, i thought that might be the case

Saw this over a year ago and last week(pic) its still going strong

just booked flights to chch in march bro-epic.again.

Been trying to use individual items for multiple uses whilst climbing for a while and made this a while ago. Rope guide that is spliced with a large eye on end and a ring on the other, the large eye can be tied as a klemheist for footlocking(clip small crab and pulley to shirt to keep out of the way). Get to anchor point and it can be used a rope guide (ring). Just move the small crab to the large eye for retrieval. Also, as the pulley is already on, you can work/rescue straight of your fl prussic. For srt attach the lge eye to hand ascender and clip the ring to the pulley to use as a footloop. Its not perfect but it works well for now

nice work bro!!!!!!!!

Hey bro, after a couple of weeks on 8mm OP im definetly going back to AP. I find the OP has a memory and the hitch doesnt always bite, especially after a while ascending. IF the 8mm APn came with stitched eyes like the OP it would be perfect imo. Ive just spliced up some 10mm AP and it is a tad bulky but doesnt take up too much room on your crab. and sirius is available in NZ adam. and Hollands, your gettin fat bro.................

thats 4m of AP 10mm rope, spliced, with the twister. i think.............

hold the spliced end and pull down so your hc goes up to your anchor. then pull the tail to you and the hc will come to you bro.

big and high is the way to experiment bro

was telling my mate how to do it a while ago and he made the marlin spike but didnt clip into it, voila hc sent about 15m up into the canopy and him stuck where he was.

duck on handled ascender

yeah i think they get here in a cple of weeks with all the stein stuff-i was thinking of trying the stein helmet too but im not so sure now either bro!

Thought id post some pics (hope ya dont mind rupe, it was after your vid that i thought of doing the pics) on how to retrace your rope through the canopy. and i hope it makes sense:001_smile:

pics..

I agree rupe, there should be a hole above the cam to stick a crab in. Went climbing last nigyt and today and ive gotta say that the handled ascender is really comfortable though you wouldnt want fat fingers as theres not much room. The compactness is something i like for when we go bush trying to track down the big kauris, etc.. every gram counts but thats not a work situation. The duck is a bit of a strange one though......... works well when placed above a petzl ascension as a back up device. Ive got a treemotion harness and i just couldnt get the duck to stay in place, it kept side loading the crab and when the rope was under tension (from the foot ascender) it didnt want to grab straight away which was a bit disconcerting-im thinking of having an elastic cord going from the hand ascender to it but going through some small tubing so it cant get sucked into the duck. early days though so we'll see. Phenom-its setup correctly in the pic, ther is a tiny tab you open to hold the cam open for rope installation (i had to double check the pic) and its for rope dia 8-12.7mm