Retired climber in Portland told me my tie-in method was trash

I was using a closed-system friction hitch for years thinking it was fine. A old climber named Pete watched me prep a removal on a 90 foot doug fir and said I was asking for a jammed line. Switched to an open-system MRS setup with a Triple Hitchcord after he showed me. Anybody else get told their whole climbing system was wrong by a guy twice your age?

2 comments

2 Comments

wyatt_chen861d ago

That line "asking for a jammed line" hit home for me. I had a similar moment with an old-timer in a boneyard near Eugene, he watched me set up a Blake's hitch on a spar and just shook his head. He showed me how a simple friction saver plus a distel hitch would stop me from getting a choked line on a side leaner. Did Pete make you test the new setup on a smaller tree first before you took it onto that doug fir?

hernandez.jordan1d ago

Nah man I gotta push back on this a little. @wyatt_chen86 I get where you're coming from but honestly some of us learn better by just getting into the tree and figuring out what works for us. Those old dudes act like their way is the only way but I've been running a closed system for years with zero issues. Pete would've probably had a heart attack watching me rig up a spar with a Blake's hitch and a carabiner but it never jammed on me. People get too caught up in "better" methods when sometimes your own stubborn system does the job just fine.