That brutal Tuesday last spring where I lost a 50 foot oak and my favorite climbing rope

I was working a removal in a tight backyard in Portland. Big old oak, lots of decay at the base. I set my line up high, started chunking it down, and about halfway through a big limb swing back and snagged my rope bad. It cut the sheath clean through. I had to finish the job with a backup rope while the homeowner watched from her window. What made it stand out was just how fast it all went sideways. One minute I'm feeling good about the climb, the next I'm scrambling to get down safe. Has anyone else had a rope get wrecked mid-job like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

noah_walker162d ago

Yeah that's a rough one. I had a similar thing happen with a cheap static line I was using to pull up some tile samples once. Got it snagged on a nail head and it just unraveled in my hands like a sweater. Not a fun feeling when your gear decides to quit on you mid-task.

kai8072d ago

Unraveled in my hands like a sweater" is the perfect way to put it @noah_walker16. I actually read somewhere that a lot of cheap static lines are made with really loose braiding that just can't handle any kind of snag. Heard a guy on a podcast talk about how he almost dropped a heavy box of parts when his line did the same thing, caught on a rusty screw. Makes you wonder why they even sell that stuff if it's just gonna fall apart the first time it meets a nail head.