joe into trees

The only right way to run this comp would be: 15 metre descent, to land on a thin plank placed across a mudpit. That way you have to bring your descent under control, and land lightly... and if anyone burns through their hitch (cough, couldn't happen with a spiderjack, cough) they just fall in the mudpit. No harm done. There could also be wrestling in the mudpit later. I hadn't realised before, but this is something that is definitely lacking in tree climbing competitions.

Yay, grudge match! Can I propose that the loser has to do a ballet dance at the next arborcamp talent night?

Aww. It's SO cute when the hitch guys try and do fast descents. Like watching a sumo wrestler enter a ballet contest... you know he's going to lose hopelessly, but your heart just goes out to the big guy.

G'day again. First off, the current version is the Spiderjack 2.1, which is identical to the SJ2 except for the inclusion of the replaceable pin (see picture below). All parts are interchangeable with this, and with earlier models of spiderjack. I did wonder if calling the latest vid 'Spiderjackery III' was a confusing mistake... The latest modifications (dyneema strop and metal ring; longer release lever with half-pulley) are yet to be released: formal release will hopefully be in the very near future. I don't know whether they will be sold as standard with every SJ, sold as optional parts with every SJ, or only available seperately. I also have no idea about the price... so not much help to anyone I'm afraid. Will let y'all know as soon as possible. As far as clutch wear, mine is just starting to creep now; I have had it in since August. So five and a half-months or so. Given that the SJ was new in August (when I first traded up to the 2.1) that seems quicker than usual (I reckon I was getting over six months out of the clutches with my old SJ. I have been giving it a proper thrashing however. A few people have emailed re. 'premature creep' (sounds very unfortunate... have you guys tried viagra? Keeps your lines stiff at any rate). When the device still creeps (or starts to creep again very soon) after fitting a new clutch, it (usually) means that either you've put the clutch in upside-down, or the body of the device is worn. Yes this happens! My first SJ became very worn about a year after I first got it, after six months of fire-damaged tree work in Kinglake... ropes (and moustache) black with carbon, lots and lots of long descents... At the time (being in full-time employment and hence spending someone else's money on gear.... thanks Mr Greenwood!) I just got a new SJ. If it happened again, I would know to replace the body of the device. I recommend that you contact your local ART dealer (always support your local dealer!), and if they have no idea, get them to send your request up the line. The bodies are not expensive. What affects clutch and body wear? First off, using the wooden block as much as possible will massively extend your clutch life. (Avoid premature creep by pushing your wood as hard as possible!) Secondly, skinny rope will result in shorter clutch lifespans... you can take an SJ that's slipping on skinny cordage and it will perform well with a fatter, looser braid (Premature creep with a skinny? Why not try it with a fatty?) but that's only a makeshift solution. Your clutch will wear quicker with dirty jokes... I mean ropes, but keeping arb ropes clean is a mug's game. Lastly, two quick SJ tips: Tip 1 is to take a bight of rope from the tail below the device, and loop it over the wooden block. This locks you off completely and can be done in 0.86 seconds, or 1.07 seconds with the off hand*. It works as a makeshift fix for the early stages of clutch creep, but I mainly use it if I'm working level or above the TIP, with a lot of tail below me, and I want to avoid that uber-self-tailing thing where every time the wind blows you closer to the TIP the SJ takes up slack and then you get pulled around the stem you're working on. Tip 2 is that you can re-sharpen the cams. I didn't tell you that. I woz nevah here. *these numbers are entirely fictional, and are intended to bear no resemblance to any other numbers whether real or imaginary.

G’day all, Sorry for dropping offline for such a long time there. 2012 has gotten off to a very busy start... and there I was thinking that this was going to be a nice quiet year... Just thought I’d drop in and report on how the new modifications go, after a month or so of steady climbing. When I opened the box, I was particularly excited about the dyneema-and-ring add-on, and not so thrilled about the lever with the half-pulley... to be honest, I (naively) thought that I had so few problems climbing against the line with the original lever, that the addition of the half-pulley really wasn’t going to do anything for me. One month down the track, and I still haven’t got used to how smoothly the rope runs when it’s re-directed above you. I think I had just learned how to use the friction of the rope bending over the lever, and being re-directed over the branch, to control my speed in lieu of the wooden block (as seen in the video). Now I’m all jerky again, and having to learn to use the block again when the tail is deflected... back to making little yelps and descending quicker than I wanted to for a metre or so! In other words, the half-pulley on the lever works really well. The new Velcro-replacement works a treat, but you quickly forget it’s there. I suppose that’s a good thing? Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas holidays... it’s nice and warm down here at the moment.

Good call Marc. I'm obviously a big SJ fan, but I'd be the last person to say that it's for everyone, or that it's the 'ultimate tool'. When I started climbing with the SJ, everyone was saying that it was clunky and hard to be smooth and fast with it; and that you couldn't make fast descents, and that there was no way to climb 'against the line'. I have found that, with practice, none of these were a problem... but that's not to say that everything is perfect. Biggest problem, in my opinion, is that the combination of a very low hand position and a specific hand action mean that you can't hold any weight on that arm: all your weight is in the harness. With a hitch, particularly one set reasonably high, you can hold some of your weight with the hand that's holding the rope: makes movement and balance slightly easier. On the flip side, I reckon that the SJ really isn't expensive. With the new one, all the wearable parts are replaceable. I give mine an absolute flogging, and honestly, I go through no more than 2 cams a year. Annual price: about 20 quid. Over a five year period I don't think there's any major price difference to using a spliced hitch setup, if you're climbing fast and go through a hitch a year. Earlier this year, Scott Forrest, Jeremie Thomas and I spent about 3,600km sitting in a car together. Predictably enough, the conversation turned to tree climbing. We wrote down a (fairly) detailed comparison between the hitch, the SJ and the LJ, with diagrams etc... turning it into a PDF and getting it online is on my to-do list somewhere. Take care all

Using this kind of footlock prussik, and yes just footlocking the doubled rope above the SJ. Great trick. Good! Cost me most of the skin on my chest and hands, and Angus ended up in hospital. As for Eloise... she's never quite looked the same.

Hi there, Sorry, no word yet on pricing. To be honest, I haven't even seen the parts yet, although I'm hoping that mine are going to be in the PO Box next time I make it into town. Will report back on how they go. Just out of interest, are you guys getting the exploded, rotatable part diagrams on the PDFs?

You can see the replaceable pin early in the vid, just after the first little burst of old climbing clips. There's a sort of pause, and the pin is annotated on the image. To be honest though, I got this SJ (the one with the pin) in September, and I've been hammering it ever since, but I haven't managed to wear through to the pin. Will let you know how it works once I get there!

Hey Adam, how're you going? Yes, both of the new parts will be available as optional "plug'n'play" extras. Forgot to make a big enough deal out of the replaceable pin as well, are you guys all familiar with that part?

Hi guys, Just finished making an instructional video for Spiderjack climbing. Most of it's fairly basic, but ART have let me announce a couple of new optional modifications for the Spiderjack. Sorry about the wind noise! Did my best with filters, which is part of the reason my voice goes tinny and high-pitched so often (no, it's not just puberty). The two new modifications are: (1) a new metal ring, with custom-made dyneema sling, which replaces the velcro and converts the SJ to the two-carabiner setup which so many people are using. (2) a replacement for the lower lever, which includes a metal half-pulley to make it a bit easier to operate the device when the tail is deflected. I'm not too sure about the correct way of doing this, but I think that if you click on the images you can download these really cool, 3D exploded drawings of the new parts. Hope you enjoy the vid, and it's not too basic. Please share any of your tips or tricks (I'm [email protected]) and I'll try and make another more advanced video next year sometime. Oh, and the new parts should be in the shops by February. Merry Christmas!

Just before Scott and I get lampooned in another Mark Bolam spoof (great work though Mark - loved your epic cypress takedown) I might point out that we are quite capable of making ourselves look ridiculous without any help from anyone else: (clicking on the image should take you to the YouTube vid... just make sure you're sitting down... and your kids aren't in the same room)

Hi guys, if some of you are interested in checking-out some pics from the world...

Hi guys, Sorry about the broken links. Had some server issues (long story) and lost some links. All should be good now. Here are some more quick links: Details Galleries Please submit entries to [email protected], giving your name and making it clear which category your photo(s) are being entered in. Thanks guys, looking forward to seeing some awesome tree pics!

Well, we've started to have some good entries. What's more, we've managed to get hold of some more prizes as well: we now have second- and third-prizes in every category! You can read more about the new prizes here. All up, we have nine great prizes on offer, plus the chance to see your photos displayed online in a gallery of great tree pictures...

mt.arborist and into trees invite you to enter the 2011 TreePhoto competition. Up for grabs for the winners of each of three categories are a DMM Impact Block (L), ATRAES MicroFrog SRT System or ART Spiderjack II. Full details of the competition, a list of the categories and info about how to enter are given here. We're after great tree climbing or tree work photos, or just cool pics of trees or forests, or pretty much anything tree related! If we get enough entries, we may look at producing a print-on-demand book with profits to the Tree Fund... otherwise we'll just be displaying the photos in a gallery online and the sponsors may want to use any particularly good shots in future catalogues or online. Fame and fortune (well maybe a new rigging pulley) beckon... A big thank-you to our generous sponsors: ATRAES, TreeTools and ART. Thanks guys for always supporting, and always saying yes!

Aww, you guys. Thanks heaps for all the kind words. As those of you who have been along to some climbing comps know, I am neither particularly quick nor particularly smooth when compared to a lot of the top climbers out there. This tree shows off the spiderjack very well, and it's easy to make it look good when you're in a familiar environment using a piece of equipment that is very well suited to the task at hand. If I can persuade Angus to come down out of the hills once more, and brave the bright lights and bewildering variety of coffees on the menu in the big city, we might make a video of using the spiderjack in a particularly choppy, dense little oak that has a work climb pitched in it. It's not as smooth as when the tail is free flowing, but those of you who have given up on the SJ because of problems with working against the rope may be surprised. Steve, I'm not sure why you are finding the glazing on your line. Maybe you're just descending a lot quicker than me. It is amazing how fast and far it's possible to jump with the SJ - maybe I should be pushing it further than I have been though! It may also be a problem with using the cam rather than the block to attenuate the friction? I don't know. My Samson Velocity has seen at least 18 months of heavy use, so it's getting pretty near an honourable retirement (ie, cut up and used for pole belts, tag lines and tie-down rope) but I can't see any glazing on it. As to the speeding up - - I was a bit put out at first but then I realised that this was about the best compliment that the video could possibly receive. This being the internet, there's nothing I can say that's going to convince anyone who didn't believe the video in the first place. The truth of the matter is that I was trying to go slow and be smooth - a full-on blast through that circuit could probably knock 20 seconds off the clock and be a lot more jerky and flickery. As Matt mentioned above, we spent the weekend at the Tasmanian Tree Climbing Championships. I was tech-ing and judging the rescue, so I didn't get off the ground a great deal, but I did get to watch a lot of excellent climbing. Congratulations to Ross Kite (guest climber from NZ and overall prelim winner) and Nathaniel Smith (2011 Tas TCC champion!). Someone there asked me whether I thought that everyone should be climbing on a spiderjack. The answer is that I definately do not think that. One of my favourite things about this craft is the ingenuity and inventiveness of climbers. I like that three smooth, proficient climbers will perform the same task in three completely different ways. Single rope climbing clearly has a lot to offer... but I also recently saw Brett Hamlin making the Blake's Hitch (without a prussik-minding pulley) look smooth and fast and easy. It takes time and commitment to get good with any single style, and we can't all get good with everything. The spiderjack offers some fantastic benefits - ease of ascent, smoothness coming off branches and a big increase in the range and speed of jumps compared to the VT or other hitches - but you have to put in months of practice and there are a plenty of disadvantages as well. At the end of the day, experience, competence and good decision making is what counts. The spiderjack just lets me make up a bit for not having any of those!

Hi guys. Ross, you're spot on with your cordage recognition mate. I run two spiderjacks; one happens to be on Velocity and the other on Arrowfrog. Both good ropes, no obscure technical reason for having them both. On the climb in the video, the SJ doesn't actually get too hot. Again, it comes down to having the friction on the wood and not the metal. Will get some photos up here soon, (thanks for posting the pic from the website before) - currently in Tasmania for the Tas TCC, so away from my computer.

Seems like they even let tree loppers on here mate... a proper Arborist urbanii wouldn't be seen dead in this company. I'm off to get a soy mochachino - you guys can talk about the Sekret Tree Lopers Cod in peace... Joking aside (I'm only kidding about Angus, he even owns his own pruning saw!) I'll get this back on the topic of spiderjacks... Mesterh asked: The answer is that it takes practice. You know how when people start climbing on spider/lockjacks it looks really jerky at first? It's kind of digital (either on or off) when hitches are analogue (gradual attentuation of friction). My experience of the lockjack is that it's hard to get past that without putting a spare hand on the line to control the friction. I haven't climbed on the LJ much though, so a more experienced user should answer that. The spiderjack can be made a lot more analogue with practice. I have found that I can bring myself to a complete stop by applying pressure with the wooden block, before releasing the cam. This makes the system much more fluid, and also reduces wear on the cam. Took me about 2 months to get out of the jerkiness.

Hi there defenderjack. It is indeed a good photo - if the quality is good enough you can even see Melbourne on the horizon. Thanks to Angus McMahon of Sherbrooke Tree Service for taking the photo... and for keeping quiet about what I was doing up there. If you're into tall, dead eucalypts (and who isn't?) you should check out their website - they deal with the worst of them! The one I was in in that picture wasn't particularly tall, but there's photo and video of work in some 90+ metre stone-dead Eucalyptus regnans here. The trees had all been killed by the 2009 bushfire, so even though they were very dead they were (in the main) structurally sound. Had you guys heard that a 99.6m regnans was recently found in Tasmania? The legend is that a 144m specimen was cut down back in the day, which would have made it taller than any of the redwoods found so far... if the story was true. The tallest one in the video and photos was 93.5m, and the trees used to be the tallest on mainland Australia. Fire and science got the better of them. To those who don't like the velcro on the spiderjack, you can actually get rid of it if you're using the two carabiner setup. Ceases to be necessary to open and close it, so can be replaced with a ring or permanent loop. Means you can use oval carabiner for bridge attachment and spiderjack ceases to roll around the side. Take care all and safe climbing.

That is indeed a retractable lanyard. I've been meaning to put the plans online for ages now... but you know how it is with time in this industry. It'll happen one day! Basically, the retraction system and reel are ripped out of a vacuum cleaner. Took a lot of visits to skips, council tips and vacuum cleaner shops to find just the right one! The case is made from two pvc pipe-ends joined by a strip of alloy sheet with screws put through it. The cord is 10mm Spectra Speed, and the system retracts up to about 5m of it fairly smoothly. More than that and it starts to bind from time to time. You can use 7m of 8mm line but it's hard on the hands when you have to pull yourself in. It attaches to the back of the harness with broad bands of velcro, which wrap inside the harness back-pad. The system is called 'The Tree Tentacle' and is a joint production with Scott Sharpe, who as many of you would know was tragically killed last year. We had talked about sourcing decent springs and making this thing commercially (hence the plans) but I'm too busy now to do anything with it so if anyone wants to develop it then help yourselves! It's bloody marvelous... even if I do say so myself... no more lanyard on stubs, around feet, on chainsaw, etc. "is there some sort of basic guide to using different ascenders/descenders any where?" Hi Danny Boy. Rupe is probably right that the next step from a prussik loop is adding a micropulley to tend slack. There are lots of guides around, but a (fairly) comprehensive guide to ascenders, along with some other stuff, can be found on the VTIO site. Lastly, there is no major difference between the SJ1 and SJ2 - in fact a lot of the parts are interchangeable - they have just improved the body design to reduce the number of bolts and facilitate easier changing of the cam etc. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck with the retractable lanyards - had a lot of fun making mine and starting to see more and more climbers with them down here. Maybe someone will take the idea and run with it and we can all stop hanging around the skips and just buy a decent one!

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.

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