When I was at Tree Care Industry Expo in Long Beach I met a fellow who has invented a new climbing tool. The Unicender can be used in traditional fashion and SRT. It will ascend and descend. It had the potential for being THE tool!

Tom

If more friction is needed for descending the rope can be wrapped around the horns.

That is one hefty looking device Tom. How much did it weigh? I noticed that it had a strap on the bottom end, was that used for attaching to your saddle. Also the guy in the background had on a chest harness was that part of the rigging of that device, or just something he was wearing during demos? And finally, how did it create friction and how did rope flow through it?

Ohh, and by the way, the mule tape is pretty good for foot loops, just right amount of friction, and won't cinch up too tight.

there is a lot of aluminum but it is very light.

Gary Arborjeno was demoing at the Sherrill booth. He had on a Ropewalker system so the chest ascender was for that.

The loop is to attach to the saddle. I have an adjustable bridge on mine. Tommorrow is flight day. I'll do a trip report next week.

Now that I have turned into a gear head this new tool looks pretty tempting. Today I did a wild climb and used a lot of my gear. A good 70 ft elevation gain. Thanks to a previous climb we have installed a small inconspicuous line so hauling the rope up was very easy. It took a while to gear up and move up since I decided to carry everything up the tree in my backpack to prevent any pasers-by from having any funny ideas. Some people passed under the tree and no one noticed anthing because they were too busy talking on the phone!
Tom, I keep an eye for suppliers of the new tool and for reading some of the reports on its performance.
Thanks for the heads up.
Love that new Gear and stuff!

When it does hit the store shelves it's going to be spendy. But if anyone can appreciate the machining you'll understand that, without considering product development and all of the other overhead costs.

I used it at a climb with Ponderosa today. Just a couple of up and downs. I footlocked the tail in a traditional DdRT setup. I liked the performance.

For more info, check out the thread on Treebuzz.com called "Booty..." in the rant and rave forum.

Tom