Rapping off a tree

Erik Kloeker wrote:...the fiddlestick seems like at the very least a pain in the ass and at most, downright dangerous.

And it's not really intended for rock climbing applications.

Healyje wrote: This seems like the case, but it's not and I've seen cliff tops completely denuded of trees over time from rapping directly off them. Please don't do this and instead figure out something to protect them.

I want pictures or this is BS.

Erik Kloeker wrote:FYI no one raps directly off trees here, ...

Done it more than once.

rgold wrote: ...this is bad for the trees. ....

In what way? It hurst their self image? IO have never seen evidence that rappeling causes girdling only an impression. Girdling is the complete removal of the bark around the tree. I have never even seen any of the bark removed just that i becaomes warped or dented. Again without a photo of a rapelling impression cuasing girdling or death I call BS

Pick a crag for the day. Climb a route. Leave a nice rap anchor (slings and rings) on one tree. Proceed to climb all the routes but walk back across the cliff line to your single anchor to rappel. Were you really planning on leaving an anchor at the top of every climb?

gription wrote: In what way? It hurst their self image?

It kills them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdling

gription wrote: In what way? It hurst their self image? IO have never seen evidence that rappeling causes girdling only an impression. Girdling is the complete removal of the bark around the tree. I have never even seen any of the bark removed just that i becaomes warped or dented. Again without a photo of a rapelling impression cuasing girdling or death I call BS

So why do you think the arborists all use cambium savers? Pulling a rope off a tree is never going to girdle the entire branch or trunk, and is never going to happen anywhere near as much as many parties pulling ropes off a tree would, and yet arborists still almost universally use one. If this was BS all the arborist stores would not be selling cambium savers.

To get the photos you require to recall the turds you've tossed, we'd probably have to go back fifty years, before you were born, because almost no one (you being apparently an exception) puts a rope directly around a tree any more and pulls it. And of course the trees that have died as a result are no longer around to be photographed. So the fact that you "have never seen evidence" doesn't mean anything really.

What happened with the pictures I posted is that climbers saw the damage and stopped dragging ropes around those trees, so they didn't die. Some of them are not thriving, however.

In a few minutes of googling, I found about five papers discussing the effects of partial girdling and/or ring-barking. All of them have, in general, some negative effect on trees, up to and including death, depending on various other factors and of course the amount and depth of the crease. In addition to impeding or entirely stopping the flow of nutrients up from the roots, there can also be increased susceptibility to parasitic invasions. Some trees do, however, survive without much detectable long-term damage.

By the way, even slings wrapped around trees, and even if they aren't too tight, slowly abrade away the bark under rappel pressures. For example:

How long it will take I have no idea, but eventually this tree is going to be 90% or more girdled for sure. So among other things, this suggests that it isn't just pulling the rope that may damage a tree, but just the small motions involved in weighting the rope (it stretches) will have effects analogous to or worse than what slings do.

I'm not a biologist, but all in all I'm sticking with "its bad for trees."

rgold wrote: I'm not biologist, but all in all I'm sticking with "its bad for trees."

Sold on Gold. Thanks.

Re: arborists

Is a cambium saver the same as the sheath used to protect your rope?

if you are rapping in, how do you plan to get back to the top at the end of the day? if you are hiking back up and out then hiking down is probably better. if you are climbing up and out, why not leave an anchor and grab it when you top out at the end of the day.

another option that i have used, if there isn't much to make an anchor other than trees, is to leave my empty pack at the top as a 'cushion' for the tree, sling it, then when i climb up and out at the end of my session i can clean it all up. i use this setup a fair amount rope soloing, works pretty well.