Yesterday I had 15-20 below F . wind chill. White Bata bunny boots work great in the spurs. Hand saw is a Samuri Itchiban . chain saw is my MS251.
Limbing old White Spruce is not the greatest fun in the world. The breeze blew a lot of the dust away. So I didn't have to breath it as much. . Fingers got so cold I had to warm them up on the muffler.
Another successful tree job . On the ground and on the hat. I hung 1 pulling line in it . Tail holted to a smaller spruce. Used a Petzel small acsender on the pulling line . 1/2" Sampson Double Braid. Used a rope come along to tighten it up , and give it a light pull with. Put a nice deep face in. And put in the back cut. I wanted to get most of the sapwood cut. As soon as I did most of the holding wood broke all at once.
Nice work! Gotta love a good climb! Do you climb with a rope as a second tie in as well as to descend on? Or just hook your way down?
Double line . or , wire core flip line and life line . chocked via running bowline thru the Hitch Hiker on my saddle.
On this particular tree I spured back down as I was trying to sort out the pulling line on my way down. I've learned the hard way that it's important to make sure all lines that stay up the tree are free and available. Not wrapped around a limb or stob or something. I hate having to climb all the way back up just to do something I could have done on the way down the first time.
The Bata's are best in the spurs because they have a thicker sole and better shank. Actually quite comfortable. In warm weather I wear White's or Viberg when Climbing in warmer weather. But , standing in the spurs is about as cold as sticking bare feet in ice water. I need to get a new pair of black Bata bunny boots for work. For me they are good to 20 below F. For all day outside , and fine for sporadic outside down to 40 under.
Yes and no . The Bata's are by far the best. Then Miner brand. The Acton brand kinda suck big time. The sole turns to a brick and yer constantly falling on yer azz. Bata and Miner stay flexible in the cold.
Mickeys are black and good to -20 to -30 pending socks. Betas are the arctic military boots, not commonly seen in the 48, good to -80* pending socks.
P61 ; good deal. I used to do a lot of climbing . Both for work and for speed climbing competition at timber shows we used to have in Southeast on the 4th of July. For decades it was just the classic style of a waist belt with 4 strand manilla wire rope core (flip line) we always called them a climbing rope and spurs. More recently I got into rope climbing and other with a saddle and spurs. . As I'm kinda big around I use a Weaver Cougar.
I climb for work and for fun too. Two totally different styles though,work is short pole gaffs and standard waist belt. The off hours I use a weaver batten seat 4-D ring set up with wire core flip line, some 2-3/4” tree gaffs and a rope with a friction hitch. Some times no gaffs and just the rope though if it’s not a removal so as not to hurt the tree. Climbing is fun and for sure not always easy! I’ve always admired you guys that speed climbed, Cold Trigger Finger especially with toe gaffs! Not to mention using that rope with the knot tied through the D-Ring for a lanyard
Good for you getting into climbing! Learn as much as you can things that work, and don’t work for you. As always be careful! Think twice cut once!
Do you have any pics or video of the climbing competitions? It would be really cool to see some of that. I got the basic combo climbing kit from WesSpur. It's spurs and a climbing line set up. For now I'm using ddrt with a split tail and a blakes hitch with a slack tending pulley. I quickly found out I need better boots and a newer climbing saw. I am using a old Poulan micro xxv lol.
