Is the gear I have good enough?

[madoza]

Hey everybody, I'm an experienced bowhunter and sport climber and, for some reason, I've never tried saddle hunting. I have most of the stuff I need for a simple setup I think. I have a rock climbing harness, a 60m 10.2 non-dry dynamic rope that I wouldn't mind sacrificing a few feet of for a linesman's belt (I'm guessing static would be better but this one's pretty stiff) a set of pole gaffs (my brother is a lineman) they need the upper strap but otherwise good.

From what I've seen online I need a platform ( I guess I could use something like screw in steps or a hang-on seat to give it a try) A sit drag (I have~500' of paracord have any of you played around with a woven hammock type sling?) maybe a mechanical prussick

I've also heard that some places don't like the spikes, do any of you guys use the arborist tree climbing method of throwing up a weighted lead and ascending a rope with rope ascenders/prussicks? I'm planning a trip out west that would be on public land and I would think the weight of the spikes might not be `much less than the ropes or step systems I've seen. I guess you could leave a line in place so you wouldn't need to pack in the pea and the longer rope if so.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes their time to answer what must be annoyingly obvious questions to help us guys figuring it out.

 

[abock33]

So from what I learned from just trying to use rock climbing gear as a first time sit (this past Sunday). Only using the rock harness was a bad idea. Here's my set up.

I'm using a Wild Country Synchro Elite harness. It has 10kn gear loops that i had planned on using for the lineman's loop and tether bridge. I have a diy 4 step aider that was girth hitched to the tree and I connected a single 6mm loop and an ascender to the tether (12 ft of 11mm static line that I retired from rappelling) for my other foot. I have a Sterling Chain Reactor PAS connecting my belay loop to the tree tether with bridge biner connected to a prussik sling.

There is definitely a learning curve to using the aider method of climbing. After about 20 min of me failing to scramble up the tree trying to use my bridge as the anchor I noticed that it felt like i was slowly racking myself as i weighted the tether to move the aider. I switched the anchor point to the belay loop just to get the feeling back in my feet. after another 20 min I gave up, disconnected from the tether and down climbed the aider. all in all i made it a whopping 8 ft.

I learned that I am too out of shape to aid climb and bought Hawk Helium steps and a sit drag for when i finally make it to the top. I was planning on hunting out of my aiders but decided against it when it felt like they were sawing my feet in half after about 30 min. I'll probably pick up 3 of the wedge steps for a platform to start with unless I can make something at work.