Baker wrote:You down climbed?

I'd guess alternate lanyard technique going down, just like going up. For a quicker descent the rope could be wrapped around the trunk like so, rappel with an ATC or F8 then pull the rope out from the ground. Would be a little challengeing to drop both legs to the ground cleanly to set it up but if there was a clear path as suggested it would work.



Could be done a few different ways going up and down. Guiding an unskilled climber you want to have a way to get to them quickly if they have any problems.
-moss

Nice pictures of the vista from the top.

Moss' rope retrieval would likley leave a rub mark where your method did not.
I love to climb the branches of a tree rather than climb a rope.

Climbing big trees above the set where there are adequate branches it is fast to have the leader belay the second rather than set a line and ascend the only problem is that the second must follow the same line as the rope.

I've dragged a lot of rock climbers and non climbers up trees (conifers) that I climb often by free climbing while dragging a belay line. I tie in and belay them up and down. I always love it when the rock jocks get gripped!

Your climb made me itch to get out!

Scott

scottdb wrote:
Moss' rope retrieval would likely leave a rub mark where your method did not.
I love to climb the branches of a tree rather than climb a rope.

Agree on both points. I was brainstorming an easy out with ground rope removal, I've never set a rope that way. For all my SRT rope settings on conifers I'm using cambium protection since I noticed branch damage on a climb. Damage is more likely to occur on ascent than descent because of greater dynamic loading. For the fir in the photos I would down climb with 2 lanyards or a single lanyard and a sling until I reached a branch that I could hang a DdRT rope on with cambium protection to go the rest of the way to the ground. If the first solid branch on the tree is over 60 ft. from the ground then I'd have a ground anchored SRT setting that I'd downclimb to then rappel out on the single rope. We don't have heavy epiphyte load on east coast conifers that I climb so branch climbing isn't an issue as far as disturbing canopy ecosystems.
-moss