- Joined
- Jan 17, 2019
- Messages
- 6,283
I was hunting tonight and on the way out a pretty substantial tree (guessing that the multiple forks were each around 6" diameter where they broke, not sure what diameter of main trunk was) had fallen in my path (broken pretty high) and blocked the road. The forks were long enough to cover road, so they were heavy. I didn't have cell service, a tow strap, or a chainsaw and I was a few miles in (yeah, I know).
The pic shows it part way through my destruction process.
I had a 4.0L V6 Tacoma, fabric from a ground blind, and 4 daisy chains 7 foot each on my climbing sticks. I girth hitched 1 daisy chain to the main branch, wrapped my rear hitch (I guess it is more a mount, I don't have the ball or anything smooth to tie off to) with cloth so as not to cut the second daisy chain and girth hitched that one to my truck. Now I had two daisy chains I needed to marry up. I racked my brain on how to do this without tying knots and in the moment couldn't figure it out (someone chime in and tell me the easy way now!).
So, I decide to just tie them with a square knot and then a bunch more overhands on top. Crack! It breaks right at the knot as soon as under force. The knot actually melted (that famous amsteel melting point). This was a blessing in disguise. I used that melted end to join the two ends like a soft shackle.
I then started on the smaller branches, not the whole thing at once. You can see one broken off already. I think I had to break/drag 4 forks. I pulled pretty hard with the truck as they were all attached to the tree and on the road. The ends were girth hitched on the intact end of the amsteel that goes around the button (to the tree and the truck). That never thought about breaking. I was soft shackling using the melted ball going into the triple brummels. I only broke one triple brummel splice when I was being too ambitious. But what that amsteel and splices did blew my mind.
I'll never question whether those will hold a human's weight.
Took me an hour to get out. I finally moved everything enough that I could drive half in the ditch. Glad to be home! I had a headlamp on, so you can see the shadow of my phone and hands in the pic (throws the scale off, I was at least 10 yards from the tree base there).
The pic shows it part way through my destruction process.
I had a 4.0L V6 Tacoma, fabric from a ground blind, and 4 daisy chains 7 foot each on my climbing sticks. I girth hitched 1 daisy chain to the main branch, wrapped my rear hitch (I guess it is more a mount, I don't have the ball or anything smooth to tie off to) with cloth so as not to cut the second daisy chain and girth hitched that one to my truck. Now I had two daisy chains I needed to marry up. I racked my brain on how to do this without tying knots and in the moment couldn't figure it out (someone chime in and tell me the easy way now!).
So, I decide to just tie them with a square knot and then a bunch more overhands on top. Crack! It breaks right at the knot as soon as under force. The knot actually melted (that famous amsteel melting point). This was a blessing in disguise. I used that melted end to join the two ends like a soft shackle.
I then started on the smaller branches, not the whole thing at once. You can see one broken off already. I think I had to break/drag 4 forks. I pulled pretty hard with the truck as they were all attached to the tree and on the road. The ends were girth hitched on the intact end of the amsteel that goes around the button (to the tree and the truck). That never thought about breaking. I was soft shackling using the melted ball going into the triple brummels. I only broke one triple brummel splice when I was being too ambitious. But what that amsteel and splices did blew my mind.
I'll never question whether those will hold a human's weight.
Took me an hour to get out. I finally moved everything enough that I could drive half in the ditch. Glad to be home! I had a headlamp on, so you can see the shadow of my phone and hands in the pic (throws the scale off, I was at least 10 yards from the tree base there).
Last edited:
