I love my gear! and I love to learn new ways to incorporate or to set up the old pieces into a new use or configuration. Some of the set ups are not very efficient or practical but the idea of being able to reconfigure and use gear safetly is a fullfilling experience. I finally learned to use the Panting in a lot of climbing situations and it works fine for me.
The retreever has not lived to my expectations so I do not use it most of the time and stays in the box in the garage.

I often find myself not satisfied with recreational gear that is available. I demand bombproof robust gear, that can take a beating and double as rescue gear when required. I find recreational gear to be low quality, seemingly intended for very casual users.

So i buy rescue gear or industrial gear instead. I pay more for it, yes, its often a little heavier, but i get more enjoyment from using it, and it lasts longer.

Case in point: i used to own a Portaledge, i used it for camping of all things, suspended over a stout limb several feet off the ground. What a piece of crap. Lasted about two seasons before the webbing and nylon blew out, and the corners cracked. Junk.

so my next "hanging home" so to speak, will not be another Portaledge or tree specific ledge. It will be a stainless steel Stokes litter stretcher, lined with a Thermarest, rigged and suspended by industrial stretcher rigging and a Petzl Bear Paw and topped off with either a mesh fly or rain fly. A very "post modern, industrial" treepod


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Originally posted by SRT-Tech
I find recreational gear to be low quality, seemingly intended for very casual users.

Are you referring to rock gear when you say recreational gear? There is very little gear that is sold as "made for recreational tree climbing".

New Tribe make a few items specifically for recreational tree climbing, most notably their saddles. Their stuff is very far from being low quality. For instance NT tree boats are very well made and are lightweight and comfortable (not a bad combination).

That would be a sight to see you sleeping in a rescue stretcher in a tree It would make an excellent _base_ for a photography blind in a tree. How heavy is it? Oops, just reread your post, it's stainless steel, going to be very heavy. It would make sense for a semi-permanent installation.
-moss

Originally posted by SRT-Tech
I demand bombproof robust gear. . .
I myself, (and probably most of us here), use a combination of REC and industrial gear. REC gear is as durable as it has to be to make its safety spec, but no over-kill.

Building REC gear bomb proof would make it heavy and expensive. For our gentle craft, that would be unnecessary.

I can see that SRT-Tech has a passion for heavy duty MIL_Spec and beyond. I can appreciate that! If I ever get trapped or injured on a transmission tower, I want to get rescued by a technician that likes “bomb-proof” climbing gear.

An opinion from the bowels of the aging industrial infrastructure of the Northeast.
-Ej-

^ i like dual purpose gear. Go from a solitary climb to blcoking down a storm damaged tree, to picking off a scared buddy who cant climb further.

its a longevity issue too....i have had harnesses (not just tree) with webbing loops for Tips, and they wear rather quickly i find. I much prefer robust D's for TIP on the saddle. Its the little things like that that i'mm refering too.

SRT-Tech. you say, “In my view there is NO PLACE for plastic components in the rope community.” You do know, of course, that there are some extremely durable plastics? Can't you name even one industrial-quality device that has a plastic part?

You say, “I find recreational gear to be low quality . . . .” Rather than that generalization, could you be more specific, telling us exactly what it is that is “low quality” about, say, New Tribe saddles?

Thanks.