Here's a completely different paradigm to consider. Tie the bridge (or your split tail) to your Blake's fairly short. You will need to footlock the down rope with this method. There are many options to do this:
1. Ascender with footloops on the down rope
2. Footloops made from 9mm rope attached with prusik to the down rope
3. Single foot "loop" footlock on the down rope (no gear required)
4. Double foot footlock on the down rope, same as doubled rope secured footlock except you're just locking the single down rope (requires the most practice to develop this skill).
5. Pantin, foot ascender on one foot on the down rope

Ok whatever way you choose to use your legs to provide power on the down rope now tie in and start climbing. Your bridge is nice and short. Lock the down rope with your ascender, feet, whatever. Grab the down rope above the hitch with one hand and below the hitch with the other. Get your feet under your butt, stand up on the down rope. As you stand, regrab the rope with your upper hand higher on the down rope. Then move the hitch up with your lower hand. Depending on how much rope you grabbed with your feet you might be able to move your upper hand up again and continue moving the hitch up with your lower hand. The only limit to stroke length here is how much you grab with your feet or ascender on the down rope. It's most efficient hanging away from the trunk. If you're on the trunk put one foot on the tree to keep you steady, the other foot/leg does the work.

If you get this very efficient ascending motion down I don't think you'll want or need a hitch advancer. Hitch advancers are most optimal for body thrust technique. Body thrust is not sustainable over the course of a rec climb and is rough on the arm joints and tendons. I save body thrust for making short movements in the tree to get around obstacles etc.
-moss

TreeTramp posted this image:





Hmmmmmm... couldn't see image. Took size=150 out and then it was visible. Then put size=150 back and it still worked? Mysterious bug?

I downloaded the image to my computer and then attached it to the post, see if that works

I can see all the images now, but at first I couldn't see the little one. It's possible the website where the image is located was down at that moment. Either that or something else odd happens.

I think from now on I'll post images with the _link_ visible so that you will know they are there.

Davej wrote:
I can see all the images now, but at first I couldn't see the little one. It's possible the website where the image is located was down at that moment. Either that or something else odd happens.

I think from now on I'll post images with the _link_ visible so that you will know they are there.

The kodak gallery site doesn't allow _embed_ded images in other web sites. When you view the image directly on the kodak site it loads it into your browser cache, then it will appear in the TCI posting, if you hit reload or refresh on your browser you'll notice that it will disappear from the TCI posting (except for the version that I attached to the post).

Attaching a photo using the "Select Image file to attach" (at the bottom of the window when you create a TCI post) is the most reliable way to post an image on the TCI forum. If you want to use the image tag you need to post the photo on a web hosting service that allows images to be _embed_ded in other web pages (like flickr.com)
-moss

moss wrote:

The kodak gallery site doesn't allow _embed_ded images in other web sites. When you view the image directly on the kodak site it loads it into your browser cache

Oh boy. I hadn't considered that sort of craziness.

Back to the topic of hitch tending I'm thinking of making a little plastic dohickey with three holes in it, rather than using a pulley. The two smaller outer holes for a line to a Prusik.