There are a lot of things that are really unnerving about this 'system.' I'm reasonably new to this, trying to figure it out, and haven't ever used anything else like climbing sticks or even a lock-on stand more than 1-2x.
There's a lot of this that doesn't make sense to me, but the big ones are:
1. To get my knees up and around the step, I have to give myself enough lineman's rope that I'm unstable side to side. Or when I pop up, the rope goes loose and drops to below hip height on the tree.
2. On the way down, getting the 'biner back on the crossbar, and then getting the strap to come tight to find a step, feels like reaching around off a cliff edge for a foothold.
3. Catching the knaider hooks on the crossbar, and wrangling the carabiner on and off, seems like a tussle every time.
I don't know a single soul around here who works with anything like this, and every video I watch, dudes are just like, 'yeah, it's easy and simple! :05 and I'm at twenty feet!' Not me.
Is this considerably harder than using other methods? How long did it take you to get it down enough to feel comfortable? Other than 'practice a lot,' do you have any other suggestions for figuring this out? I'm really frustrated because I've taken a long time to assemble all the parts of this, and get the time to work on it, and now that I'm doing it it seems like it's a long way off before I'm going to feel comfortable enough of this not to stink of fear just getting to 12-14 feet.
There's a lot of this that doesn't make sense to me, but the big ones are:
1. To get my knees up and around the step, I have to give myself enough lineman's rope that I'm unstable side to side. Or when I pop up, the rope goes loose and drops to below hip height on the tree.
2. On the way down, getting the 'biner back on the crossbar, and then getting the strap to come tight to find a step, feels like reaching around off a cliff edge for a foothold.
3. Catching the knaider hooks on the crossbar, and wrangling the carabiner on and off, seems like a tussle every time.
I don't know a single soul around here who works with anything like this, and every video I watch, dudes are just like, 'yeah, it's easy and simple! :05 and I'm at twenty feet!' Not me.
Is this considerably harder than using other methods? How long did it take you to get it down enough to feel comfortable? Other than 'practice a lot,' do you have any other suggestions for figuring this out? I'm really frustrated because I've taken a long time to assemble all the parts of this, and get the time to work on it, and now that I'm doing it it seems like it's a long way off before I'm going to feel comfortable enough of this not to stink of fear just getting to 12-14 feet.