Hi from ohio

[mostlytree]

Hi,
I am not much of a caver, more rock than cave and lots of trees. Im a certified arborist and splicer. there are really 2 reasons I joined one, caving is cool and now I have a more flexible schedule to play , but the other is the reason is, I invented a new version of a old system, which the caving community may be interested in. Its called the HAAS system. its a self tending knee ascender. but the whole system stays on one side and under the attachment point. And when you are done with it, it comes off easy and stows clean. So what I would like to know is is there a place for this thing in caves? if you use a frog or rope walker, you should love this, but I am new to the ideas of caving. end to end is a little over 2 ft long weighs less than a lb , and is way cheaper than a frog system.

what I would like to do is maybe drop a haas into your community, you guys can pass it around and let me know what you think? if anyone is interested in this please let me know and we can set something up


here is a you tube http://youtu.be/gWFm7v9rbNI the one in the video is my personal pre production one, they are prettier now.

I am proficient in the rope work in tree care as well as crane, lines, rigging, splicing, and all that.

it is great to be part of your community and I hope to be able to make a positive contribution.

Michael

[GroundquestMSA]

Hi Michael, what part of Ohio are you in?

Your system seems to work well, though I would have to see it in person to get a complete grasp of what's going on. I'm not familiar with the rope wrench or hitch climber. Where vertical techniques are concerned, there is a lot of potential for detailed discussion and debate on this forum. Many cavers use a frog system since it's cheap, simple, and easy to change over from climb to rappel. I'm sure the experts will chime in, I'm not one of them. The common feeling seems to be that arborist methods don't always work well in the cave environment.

[mostlytree]

thanks
there is a lot of truth to that ! the arborist stuff does not always work well in a tree either.
the rope wrench is only needed because we will use hitch cords, we have switched to high performance cordage but alas still a hitch. all the wrench does is takes some of the weight off the hitch so it can be released so we can go down.
for your purpose, non of that would be needed. the hitch climber is the attachement and tending point of the rope. take that whole system out and replace it with what ever your life support system is.
I know there are various systems of life support progress capture you guys use. (the hitch cord , hitch climber, and rope wrench, are our version of a life support progress capture.) so think of it like this. walk up to the rope and set your life support progress capture system.. then put the haas on and a foot ascender on, and go. get to the top take the haas off and disengage the foot ascender, and when you are safe take your self off the system.
ideally the boat snap or what ever you tie on the bungie should be as close to inline as you can get. the hitch climber makes this really easy, but a bunch of guys snap it to their saddle. really it just needs to be attached to a place that gives it position to pull the ascender block up.

I came up with this system because I hated the complexity of the rope walker and the akwardness of the frog. and its cheaper. the whole system including foot ascender is under 250 bucks. ready to go.

Im in columbus, if you ever want to meet we can find a tree and I can show you the system. I would like to start caving I have no idea what this is all about. I think I just spent 3 or 4 hrs reading posts. I had no idea this stuff even existed!

[GroundquestMSA]

Frogging certainly isn't fast, but that's often of secondary importance anyway. It is very cheap and simple though. My frogging rig consists of a harness, croll, handled ascender, footloop, chest strap, and cowstail. The Haas adds another ascender (or in my case 2 since I don't own a Pantin) and speed to the system without removing any gear, which is fine. I'm sure it may be of interest to ropewalkers.

I would be glad to show you some Ohio caves... if there were any worth showing. Here in southern Ohio caves are fairly common but extremely small, not much good for recreational caving.

enjoy the forum

[caver.adam]

First impressions looking at this from a caver's perspective.

I really like the use of a cinch knot on the foot, but in caving you have to consider whether you will need to kick your foot free at some point during the climb.

The use of the rope to make a chest harness was very nice, but cavers typically are looking to keep their gear very small because we have a limited amount of space and have to carry everything with us. Also, I wonder how that rope might dig into the side on a 600 foot climb.

Another question that comes up very quickly is how this system would perform going over a ledge. Worse, I don't think it would work well at all on a traverse.

And how does one perform a change-over? How about in a small environment? Could another caver climb the same rope in case the person climbing was knocked unconscious by a rock?

Caving systems are not the easiest systems possible for climbing a straight rope, but they are designed to work going over ledges, re-belays, traverses, etc. Cavers should always consider the emergency applications while designing a new system. That being said, I always like to see fresh ideas. I have no doubt that systems will continue to change over the years.

[mostlytree]

thanks! that is great.
all those things are minor to the Haas. in fact in the tree community those are non standard. I personally us my lanyard because I have it and need to carry it anyway, I would not do this caving. I would wear a traditional chest harness. the cinching knot, its actually a adjustable lop. most guys like it some do not. the haas is built so the the guys who want to mod it can. some other solutions are to put a eye on the end of it with a locking brummel. then they use hardware to attach it to their foot, some have played with a quick disconnect system . my hope is you would use the haas for what it does great, and built it into your systems. all those things are things that are not actually haas specific. and lastly it goes over ledges way better than a frog system, in fact the guys who do ice are using it as a self rescue device for this reason.

as for small areas I have no idea, that is why I am asking your opinions.. you have to reach down to open the gate, with for the first time in my life I understand the patin.. which I HATE. in tree work I find it to be a terrible annoyance. but I am also very limber and am never in a place where I cannot just reach down and disengage it. I don't think this would be a issue the ascender on the haas should never be out of each, but again you guys are in places I have never been.

to change over is pretty easy, if you only need off the system for a short period of time, just open the block, remove the rope and close it back up. you can leave it in place. if you are done ascending for a while, there are many ways guys deal with it, I remove it completely,it only takes a second , some guys kick the foot loop off and rack the loop leaving the boat snap on. but really there is no "right way" and you may do something completely different.

what the haas does, is self tends the knee ascender from below your tie in which is safer and more efficient. that is the cool part, now how you incorporate that into your system, that is up to you.
if you cave ofter what I would like to do is actually send one out to someone who would use it. then your guys can float it around the forum. some of the forums I am part of for tree work do this. its pretty cool. and stuff does not get stolen.

as far as other climber climbing the same rope, that has nothing to do with the haas system and I cannot answer that question. the haas is in effect a accessory to your system, and will not change the answer which should be based on your system

if you think of the haas a a foot ascender that can be used with a foot ascender it will make more sense. in tree work we just kept making the system more and more complicated, adding stuff to overcome issues, I backed it way down, and removed a ton of stuff. a rope walker set up for tree work is over 500 bucks and its bulky and complicated.. the rope walker and frog walker are true systems, lots of stuff. the haas will replace either with only once piece of gear which only has two attachments. a foot loop and a snap. no cow tails, no chest rollers no over your hitch hand ascenders, which by the way is illegal in tree care. we all did it but its not allowed.

the only thing I can see bing a issue is if the bungie gets dirty, in tree work this is a non issue, in your world it is. my concern would be if the dirt gets carried into the liner it may restrict the movement of the bungie all the way down the length of the liner. I really don't know and have no way of testing it though. if it is a issue we could build a cavers specific model with a wisker biscuit to keep dirt out. or I can modify the liner to make it more easily washable. the bungie we use is really high quality stuff, its made to be put in really terrible conditions, so I am not worried about that. but it could be physically stopped up until you wash it. my thought is this would take many trips, so you would just have to wash it every trip. which I am guessing you guys do anyway judging by the pictures you post.

really the best way to answer these questions is to put it to the test, and I am up for that. I'll provide the haas and the first shipping fee, if you decide to participate you are responsible for freight to the next tester. it takes some honesty but its kinda fun, I have participated with these, and always had fun with it. once everyone is done with it I get it back to test and destroy it. let me know if there is any interest..
Michael

[ohiocaver]

Where in Ohio are you from? If NE Ohio, come to the Cleveland Grotto's meeting next Tuesday (12/17). I can give you particulars off-line. We have a member whose two daughters are arborists and do some caving. I don't think they've done any caving with tree gear, though. We do vertical stuff all the time. In fact, there is a Christmas party this weekend at a member's farm and the barn will be rigged for climbing (a good spot for experimenting with stuff and getting input on your setup from knowledegable cavers).
Look at clevelandgrotto.org for Cleveland. If you're from Dayton, Columbus or other areas, check out http://www.nssio.org/find_grotto_overview.cfm for a local club.

[caverdan]

Mostlytree, One of our best cavers in Colorado owns a tree trimming business. He mixes his tree skills with caving all the time and reaches heights the rest of us wish we could achieve. I think that since his anchor point is usually moving around (tree sway) it has given him a sense of balance on rope the rest of us don't have or practice. I've seen him pull off some lead climbs that the normal person would never attempt. I think your already ahead of the game and will fit right into the caving crowd. If your ever in Colorado Springs.....look me up....we have some beautiful caves right here in town. (warning....they don't call us crawlorado for nothing).

You might also think about coming to the national convention this year in Huntsville AL. Every year it is held in a different state....but in 2014 it will be held at our new national headquarters building and land. There are a bunch of us from Colorado coming. It will be a great place to meet a lot of the people on the discussion board. Caving is a very small community. Kind of like rock climbing use to be in the 70's. I guarantee you a good time and lifetime of friend if you can make it.

[mostlytree]

I would love to
this seems like a great group of folks.