Tom,

The knot you described was taught to me as a "heaving knot", designed to be used when docking a ship, to fling the line to a dock worker to tie off your vessel. The knot works great in the tree unless the tree is one with a bark that has a large coefficent of friction. The only problem with the knot is that it dosent carry enough weight to bring itself back down so you end up tossing loops to get it back down. I dont think that it will invert, however I've tossed it into some pretty tight crotches and havent gotten it stuck yet, it tends to flip end over end when yanked, though thats a good way to catch the knot on the cranium, so always wear a lid.

I'm sure Joe Maher is around somewhere; I think he has a frightening story about getting a toss like this stuck during a solo climb (arruggh), though I'm not sure he will share it... I still need to get that book.

Cam

I climbed a redwood tree with a thirty foot throwline. We got the first limbs at about 60', then climbed up 200' more feet this way!

love
nick

In the third message above this one, Cam refers to a rather frightening episode that I experienced while on a solo wilderness climb in north Georgia. He implies that I might rather not talk about it. Let it be known that I have never passed on the opportunity to relate a good story!

The discussion here is about monkey fists and other various ways for advancing a climb beyond the entry pitch. Let me state that this experience did not involve a monkey fist and that the "fright" of the situation was only for as long as it took me to realize that I had quite a few creative options for resolving the situation.

I was in a large tulip poplar at a height of slightly more than one hundred feet. My next pitch would have been my final pitch and the anchor limb was about fifteen feet above my present perch. I had already used a short throwline and weightbag to get over the limb and was in the process of hauling my rope into place. I had used the
throwline/weightbag because there was too much foliage between me and the limb for me to have made a good throw with a monkey fist. I did not have a good view of the point at which the line was passing over the limb, but I was quite sure that I had a good anchor. I was climbing on a one-fifty foot length of Fly.

As the rope passed over the limb it became snagged on the upper side of the limb at the point where line and rope were tied together. I could not get the rope to move in either direction. I have never had a rope as securely stuck as this one. The rope would not move. It was caught and I could not even see what it was caught on. I put all my weight on the rope and it would not budge. I put all my weight on the throwline and it broke. The rope was as securely stuck as if I had tied it in place. That was when I suffered a condition described by one outdoor writer as a "Momentary Stationery Panic."

I was in a tree one hundred feet off the ground and in a remote location. I was snagged on a setting that I could not and would not trust. I was not carrying another piece of rope because when I go to such places I go as a minimalist.

Following my own Number One Rule for such situations I took a deep breath and then started to laugh at myself. No problem.

I had my throwline and weight bag so I tossed to another limb just beneath the one I was snagged on. I pulled up on my downrope, tied a figure-eight-on-a-bight, connected to my harness, reached further down on my downrope and tied a slipknot. The loop created by the slipknot formed a double-daisy and I pulled this bight over the newly accessed limb with my throwline and connected the loop into my harness. I then double-daisied my way up till I could reach my snagged rope, freed it, tossed it back over the limb it had been snagged on, tied a DRT bridge, hooked in, untied my other rigging, and the climb proceeded as usual.

Very simple.

Joe provides a good lesson here. There is a way out of (almost) every situation. During one of my climbs the tail of my line became entangled some 40' below me. I could not descend on DdRT as the running portion of the line was being held securly by the clove hitch that had formed below me. My initial reaction was to panic. "I can't get down now! OH NO!" I had a ground crew that day and he was able to throw a loop over the branch that set me free. The lesson here is that in such a situation the most important method for saving oneself is to calm down and examine the situation. When I had calmed down later in the day I realised that I could have simply ascended to my tie in point, lanyarded in to the TIP, secured the line with a running bowline, and descended on the Fig-8 that was clipped to my saddle. I should have been able to see this clearly, but my panic prevented me from saving myself. By the way it was a lesson learned, as I had to extract myself in this exact fashion some months later. (Always keep the tail of your line attached to your saddle, or stuff into a rope bag clipped to you to prevent such a snag.)

Lesson here- reamin calm, and Climb Safe!

Cam "Icabod" Taylor

About two weeks ago, by freak accident, a throwbag ended up clipped to my saddle. I realized it about 20' up. I was about to toss it down, then thought I'd leave it.

I found my self using it several times in that tree. I just clipped it to the end of my climbing line. Man! No more messing around tying the monkey's fist or similar throwing knots.

It has not been removed from my saddle since. When climbing medium sized trees, I will leave it clipped to the spliced-eye end of my climbing line until I get to the top. It just stays there, making every toss to the next branch that much easier.

love
nick

I found my self using it several times in that tree. I just clipped it to the end of my climbing line. Man! No more messing around tying the monkey's fist or similar throwing knots.
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what about a weak _link_ so as not to get the whole system jammed in a fork?