No helmet lol. Good one.
Ok, wow, I was so nervous watching this when I saw these things. I THANK you for your courage and leadership in posting, but urge you to be REALLY careful. I have two significant comments for your SAFETY. Not trying to sound snippy... I just take your safety as important as my own.
Thanks for the heads up and correction. I deleted the video. I’ll try the correct Garda hitch soon.
Well, i think u said something about the Garda not moving so smoothly and so i would expect that you'll get that all worked out now. And don't forget my bull hitch variant on the webbing. Now, if i just had time and a camera operator, my TODO list is getting longer by the day. Yesterday i self filmed me breaking a climbing rope with a tractor... not sure it's good enough to release tho...
I believe I heard you say you’re using Powercord for a bridge, a Technora core used for bridges have failed in the past. The small bend radius, self abrasion, and the concentration of use in the middle of the bridge makes them break. With a cover it is hard to inspect, many better choices.
That's an excellent piece of information and I appreciate you bringing it up. I am confident that it is okay for my application, but encourage all climbers to do the research and make safe decisions. My primary reason is that there's a big difference between my primary Bridge which I spend my time on and which receives a lot of travel in the lateral Direction and by redundant Bridge which only take slowed during rappel or in the case of an emergency and doesn't take any lateral movement under load. And I accept the responsibility to inspect all of my components and replace them if they show any signs of wear. However with all of that said, I would be curious at what type of cord you would recommend in this application? Note that I use two strands and so I don't want anything stick and bulky and prefer something in the 6-8 mm range. My last one was simply 6 mm accessory cord, and the one before that was eight millimeter accessory cord.
Your Garda hitch doesn’t look right.My first look and second attempt at JRB Climbing method. I’m using the rope that I typically rappel on after one sticking which is 35’ of 5/16 Samson Ultra Tech with 5.5mm Beal cord for the Michoacans.A few take aways from my first attempts. The Garda hitch takes a little bit of pull to progress. It doesn’t take a lot, but more than an ascender. It also liked to flip over on itself no matter what I tried. It held the rope regardless if it flipped on itself or not. I only had it slip a little once and it was just barely. The mich hitches did well but it was a little cumbersome progressing both at the same time. I did have a time or two that the mich hitches didn’t want to catch at the top of a progression. If the Garda hitch woulda slipped at this point I would have been gassed. I think this would be limited as the rope takes shape of the mich hitch if that makes sense but it was still sketchy. I know John lifts himself with both hands and then quickly progresses the hitches but I haven’t built the confidence to try that yet especially with them loosening at the top of a progression. I transitioned to my figure 8 to rappel and had no issues breaking the mich hitches at the top. I haven’t rappelled with my prussiks above my tie in point before so it was a new feeling but it worked out fine. All around fun method of climbing and not any more difficult than anything else I’ve tried. If I were to climb on 8mm rope I would want it to be doubled like in the method. Two ropes allows so much better grip. I know it’s 1 continuous rope but climbing 2 ropes.View attachment 51171View attachment 51170
JRB Climbing Attempt
youtube.com
You are correct about the Garda and I did point that out in a prior reply but for anyone who missed it, this is how to engage the Garda.
I'm guessing you question wasn't directed to me, but I had the same question. In fact, I know this is aggressive, but with the significant breaking strength of that TRC cord, I have considered building an entire climbing system on it. 3484lb or 15.4 kN is the strength of the cord, which gets doubled in a doubled rope system which shares the load evenly on both sides. Too aggressive? If the specifications are correct, it should be fine. The trouble will be finding a smaller hitch cord that works on it because the surface area is starting to get pretty darn small!
I don't have a YouTube on it but i do have a clip posted in several FB groups on how to Rappel on a single line using redundant friction hitches and a Munter. Let me know if you want to see that. And so assuming I can figure out the Rappel, what else did you not like about it which would make it inappropriate for a doubled rope system like the jrb system?
If you join JRB Tree Climbing group, then ya can search for the #munter topic.
