joe into trees

Just to jump in here and say I hope all you guys from the old country can find a way to make it down for this. We've run a few comps now using this format, and the reviews from competitors have been really positive. It's fast, fun, and (believe it or not) actually a good spectator sport. Plus the location we've managed to get access to is just awesome - river red gums are one of Australia's iconic trees. And October in Australia is slightly more pleasant than October in the UK... It's just like that here all the time in October. Really, honest.

Hi Mark, good to hear from you again. Do you mean, you're using SLWP for everything, so don't need a low-friction TIP, or that it's so easy to SRT to the top anyway to set your TIP if you're going to use MLWP? First off, I think it's really good for SLWP anyway - use one side as a rescue line, the other as your WP line: you get the energy absorbing lanyard, the quick set from the ground w/ rescue line, easy to move TIPs etc. Secondly, even with a quick SRT run to the top, I often prefer not to have to if I can avoid it. I am definitely older and lazier than I was, but I'm currently working in the tropics, where it's regularly 40 degrees and almost 100% humidity, so any energy saving is great. Lastly, (and at risk of derailing the topic) I have yet to be convinced that SLWP is an improvement other than for specific problems. One of the things I've done quite regularly in the last few years, is run/host a climbing system comparison workshop, where we decide on metrics for comparison then break down a 'tree climbing problem' into its most basic steps - often the minor ergonomic / efficiency advantages possible through good use of a simple system. At its best, the workshop takes at least half a day to a full day, and is fully interactive, with different climbers demonstrating their solutions to the problem(s), and the group as a whole discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the solution. The results, of course, depend on the specific problem(s) you use to make the comparison, but it's not often in SLWP's favour, despite all the enthusiasm. This argument has been done to death here and elsewhere online, however, so I probably shouldn't have brought it up again. I think forums are not the best place to have these discussions - in person with beer seems to work well! - and in any case that's a different topic. Just wanted to answer your question there...

Hi all My first post on here in a long time. Hope you have all been well. Many apologies for the long wait between that video and these things hitting the market. Just quickly, in reply to the many people who see this as too much fuss for not much gain: I've had one of these for a year now, and I mainly use it in the 'traditional' Rope Guide format, with the soft-eye SpliceAnchor sling. In that format, it is (in my opinion) the best low-friction TIP money can buy. The soft eye means it pulls out easily, but it still has the ART camming action, energy-absorbing lanyard, choking function, changeable parts etc etc. However, when the right tree comes along - one with a good shot to the TIP, or the opportunity to start work low down without climbing all the way up there, it takes seconds to swap the device onto my old access line and install it from the ground. When set up like this, you get a rescue line and climbing line with a 1:1 load on the TIP all set up with one shot, plus it's almost impossible to get it stuck (I know I shouldn't say that... I will be punished for that comment the very next tree I climb), and it retrieves without dropping it. I would say I use it like this in approximately 1/3 of the trees I work in, most often in removals where I can start work from the ground up, or for any tree where I won't need to go to the top. I know there are lots of ways to simulate this effect with in-line anchors and so forth, but this is the neatest way of doing it I've found. And it's quick, easy and safe as well. Way neater and less vulnerable than doing tree work tied off to a ground anchor, plus easy to change anchor points, go from tree to tree, etc etc. Lot of application for SLWP as well... though we didn't cover that much in the video.

Hi guys, I'm just after some advice, in case any of you have run into this situation before. Back in 2010 I came up with a different way of splicing the tether for an SRT system. Cobbled together with the Kong Futura and some other kit, this became the . I wrote about it in this handout, then started making these kits for an Australian gear supplier and for my friends. Now I find that Wesspur have brought out their own - quite frankly somewhat shoddy - knock-off version. I wrote to them to try and get them to - at least - attribute the design, and their first reply was fairly courteous: So far so good, right? Unfortunately since then they have decided to completely ignore every single one of my emails, not even having the basic courtesy to send a reply. So, long story over, any advice? Anyone been in this situation before and found a way to move forward? At the end of the day, it wasn't patented or anything - I mean, why bother, look at how the Faltheimer got ripped off by everyone - and it seems a shame to go down that road anyway. But is that the only answer?

Great quote. Works both ways - we could make another vid featuring 101 ways to commit suicide with a SnakeTail. Perhaps that would be harder to see the funny side of. Anyway, for those of you with better things to do than watch me do cartwheels in drag (yeah right) we are working on a 'directors cut' which will be released on the ART Channel in the next week or so, covering only the legitimate uses without any of the extraneous crap. Take care all

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvSAlOREe-8&list=UU2TSFy9wbZLR5jfeW6gWrGg&index=1]101 uses for the ART SnakeTail - YouTube[/ame] Hi guys, the video above is as the forum title suggests, an almost painfully long attempt to cover every possible use for ART's soon-to-be-released SnakeTail system. There are probably about 30 - 40 legit in-tree uses interspersed with some more creative attempts. The system will be on sale soon - the only thing left to do is write the manual, which (given that the uses for the system include flagging down helicopters, bedroom play and cross-dressing) might take some time. We don't have a price yet. (I was going to put this in the video forum where it probably belongs, but then I figured that it was advertising new climbing kit so maybe it ought to be here? )

Unless of course our estimation of peak load is way off. Which it probably is. Also: our reliance on using the elongation of the rope to slow the piece was negatively affected by our setup. 7-8m of elongation before break actually worked out at approx 3m by the time it was doubled and we lost possible elongation due to friction (between the log and the possible-extending section of cordage). Watching the vid, it looks like all of the possible elongation has taken place already by the moment of peak force (when the change in velocity of the snatched timber is highest - right when it broke in fact!).

Well, I'm pleased to report that Codz has added a healthy baby girl to his growing family... Back on to the original video, however... Perhaps a more constructive way of having this discussion is, as RC0 suggests, to try and come up with better setups using the hardware available. Obviously, if we wanted it to work, the simplest solution would be to take a smaller piece. Next up, use a bigger rope, or somehow get hold of a 40mm rigging block that we didn't mind throwing away afterward. However, what we managed to source was: 120m of 40mm Aquatec 3-strand rope (approx 25t break, 7-8% elastic elongation at break) 1 90t shackle 10 40t shackles we also had the usual 100m lengths of 12t (18mm) - 18t (20mm) dbl braid and matching pulleys. The piece we snatched was a fraction under 5t, and the rigging point was at about 35m in height. There was a convenient stub right there (OK, we left it deliberately) on which to take a wrap for natural-crotch rigging. Re. previous suggestions to double the rope - we didn't have enough to double through the entire system, and it wouldn't have worked well either - it was hard enough with one rope not to end up with rope-on-rope anywhere. RC0's suggestion (double rope and rig normally) might well have worked - we'd have run out of rope before the ground but we could have taken the hit on our 3-strand and joined it to the dbl-braid after we took wraps on the trees. We'd still have strength loss - 35% is the assumed loss for a clove hitch I believe - I wonder what the strength loss at our shackle ended up being? We broke a (nominally) 50t rope setup so I guess the strength loss must have been > 50%?

I'm sorry, but I've got to jump in and back Codza on this one. Right at the start of this thread, Stephen Blair and Scotspine called it as they saw it, and described us in some pretty unflattering terms. Looks like they saw the 3-strand rope, the natural crotching and the wraps on trees, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Fair enough, and Codz has just been giving it back exactly as he got it. If they couldn't work out what was happening in that video, and why (even though it's at least half explained), that's nothing to be ashamed of, but jumping in and name calling, and then not apologising when you realise that you might have misunderestimated... (to use that classic Bushism) To me, that comment crosses the line. Not sure how you thought it would be productive. Everyone's entitled to their opinion I guess, and now this thread has been quite thoroughly derailed, so I reckon I'm going to leave this here.

Hey guys There's no need for anyone to get worked up about this. No one likes being told they don't know what they're doing, so it's not surprising that comments like... or Mr Blair's input: ...will end up in argument. I try to be careful on here to avoid criticising other people's work, until I really understand why stuff has been done. In the comment above, you suggest that there was around 25ton weight as it took up. Leaving aside the fact we should be using force not weight, we were using doubled 25t rope so if you assume that we lost half strength for the bend radius we were still almost on the money... I still believe it was close. Guess you had to be there, see the aftermath and examine the gear. And it didn't 'fall about 12 feet' - the rope was installed fairly taut. What you see is the PLANNED extension in the rope (see my previous comments in response to Stephen Blair's misunderstanding). Obviously it didn't work - but a large group of experienced tree workers thought we had a fair shot at it. Re. your later comments, however, it's hard not to be slightly offended. There are many reasons we set things up like that, not 'proper negative blocking using proper arb rigging gear' and I can explain all of them in excruciating detail. It's interesting that most of the people who specialise in this sort of large tree work tend to end up ditching the 'proper arb rigging gear' and working with heavy 3-strand and natural crotching where possible. When I moved up to the hills I made the mistake of sneering at them - now I understand why they work like that. Just check out Graeme McMahon's videos on YouTube - there is a time and a place for shiny rigging pulleys and a time and a place for 40mm 3-strand! What we were demonstrating in this workshop - and one of the things I will be covering in my presentation to the Arb-Australia conference in April - is being able to recognise the difference between them. RC0, I mentioned before that I kind of agreed with your criticism that it had little scientific or practical worth. A significant proportion of my work is removing trees like this as a contract climber - even if it hadn't taken us half a day to set up that snatch, you'd never do it on a job site. Surely, however, there is a place for having a crack at something like this when the (rare) opportunity presents itself? Anyway, I'm not on here to make enemies, and to be honest I find these online disagreements kind of exhausting, except where they are backed up by reasoned argument, and result in some sort of worthwhile conclusion. So, again, apologies to anyone who didn't like the video, and we'll try to get it right next time.

Hi guys Thanks for all the constructive criticism. I was planning to post this here - just been way too busy this last week - along with an explanation of the setup that might have answered some of the points raised. Why the shackle? Given the setup we were using (cradle rigging), and trying to minimise the drop distance, the pulley/shackle stood a good chance of being crushed between the falling log and the tree. 40mm rigging pulleys are too expensive for this purpose. In retrospect, we should have used 2 shackles to increase the bend radius. Why cradle rigged? It doubles the rope to the dropped log. Sure, we lost strength at the bend on the shackle, but probably still ended up better than a straight (single line) rig. Why pay out loads of rope and wrap round trees? No friction device exists (or is affordable) that could handle those loads. So, we paid out 100m of rope, and used the extension in the cordage (7-8% elastic elongation at break) to compensate for not being able to let it run. That part kind of worked - if you watch the video, the log (kind of) runs for a bit before the rope breaks. what was the point? We didn't achieve any breakthroughs in science or rigging, that's for sure. But it was fun, and interesting to talk about (ie, why we did everything the way we did, and what went wrong - covered in far more detail at the workshop than here online). Plus, we rarely get the opportunity to test stuff like this - if it can be dropped, it gets dropped, and if it has to be rigged, we make sure it works, as the man says. I'm sorry some of you took this the wrong way. We were mainly playing, and the video was pretty firmly tongue-in-cheek. I guess that kind of humour is easy to miss online.

Hi Kevin To be honest, I reckon you'd have to be doing something really badly to rip one out. The drop test in the video was our third or fourth attempt to cause a ripout - we started by dropping a 60kg log about 2 metres... then 4 metres... but the system had too many dynamic elements: we used a dynamic climbing rope running through a pulley suspended by a second rigging line, etc etc. To get it to break, we had to use static line (which we should have done at the beginning) and drop a 120kg log quite a long way. None of that is the remotest bit scientific (guessed log weight by Scott and me not being able to pick it up) but the conclusion I arrived at is that you'd never tear a section in day-to-day climbing: you'd pretty much have to break your TIP and fall onto a lower branch. Yes, you're dead right about the RIG. Petzl say "one hand on lever and one on rope". Adam, I guess you might be able to use knots instead of hardware, but I reckon you'd loose a lot of the benefit - not sure knots would slide along the line in the event of a fall... and if they did, it would probably be a bad thing? OneLab, ART do make a similar product - the LightAnchor - which uses a ring that retrieves on the ART ball. Scott Forrest pointed out that the cambium saver setup would be better done by setting up the SnakeAnchor the other way round to how I did in the video, and retrieving it with a clip below the carabiner... if that makes sense? That way it's the ring which pulls out over the union, and you could use the retrieval ball?

[ame] [/ame] Hi guys, thought I'd post the link to a product video we've been making. Do you guys use the SnakeAnchor much? How have you found it? It'd be good to hear any reviews or criticism.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAheIiPFbOM&list=UU2TSFy9wbZLR5jfeW6gWrGg&index=1&feature=plcp]climbing the biggest eucalypt in the world - YouTube[/ame] The tree is an enormous Eucalyptus regnans in the upper Florentine Valley, Tasmania. Although it's a mere 87m in height, it has an intact crown from about 35m or so, and twin leaders with a vast canopy spread. It is also the largest (by volume) eucalypt ever measured - and may be the largest angiosperm in the world. Canopy scientists Prof. Steve Sillett and Dr. Bob van Pelt (and team, most of whom managed to avoid the camera!) are engaged in an ambitious, long term project to study how giant trees grow and change over time. Here, they were carefully preparing an exact 3D map of the entire canopy of this vast and beautiful tree. Hope you enjoy the movie...