The Monkey Beaver Saddle: My Personal Setup

[Music] um [Music] hey what's going on guys patrick here this is a long overdue video i've been meaning to do this for a while i have had my monkey beaver saddle now for a couple years i got it in the summer of 2018 and i love it and i just wanted to go over my setup for my saddle but before we get into the monkey beaver i wanted to show you my original new tribe saddle i got this in 2018 so this is the old school uh olive green i love this saddle it it reminded me of gi joe's and like just i don't know i love it but uh the reason i got in 2008 i only used it for a year probably less than a year actually the reason for that is it doesn't have a bridge the saddle doesn't have a bridge uh it you you take you take the belt on either side and then and then the and then the part from the leg strap and you lash them all together with a with a screw thing whatever that's called um so it's like a fixed it's a fixed uh tie-in point on your saddle right so it's not a you don't have a floating bridge which means uh when you when you're in a tree and you turn you turn your body hard against the rope what it means the entire saddle would twist around your body do you know what i mean and it just got really annoying to me i didn't like that in terms of like a recreational climbing saddle this is awesome i love this i still use the saddle for wreck climbing sometimes but uh i don't use it for production but anyway so so that was my first saddle with this one the new tribe check that out climb trees new tribe um i used that for about a year and then from 2008 to 2018 i had i had a couple petzl sequoias that i i used to one for like six years probably too long and then the other one for the rest of the time um and then 2018 i got i got my monkey beaver saddle direct from august so [Music] i want i want to run through the basic setup that i have for my monkey beaver i love the saddle super comfortable i the way i the way i think about it uh because i moved from again from a petal sequoia to the monkey beaver in my mind the um the sequoia is like built for rock climbing like petzl petzl is rock climbing they have later they moved into arborist stuff but it just seems like it's built for rock climbing whereas this seems it's built specifically for tree work and uh that's just my opinion of course but uh i i like this a lot more it's it's a much more comfortable fit in my opinion so go over a few of the things that a bit of the setup that i use for my monkey beer so item number one is suspenders okay now uh august sells like monkeybeaver.com sells they have their own custom made suspenders i just got these these suspenders from weaver and uh but i love them suspender like the saddle is made for suspenders right it has the it has the loops two on the back and one on either side made for suspenders right and highly recommended really helps to to distribute the load when you're holding a heavy saw it's just more comfortable in general um so that's one i would i would recommend that for it anyone anyone who has a saddle which is built to have suspenders you should throw suspenders on it it makes a big difference it's awesome so on my suspenders what i have here is just a couple little pieces of rope with a little so this serves as a chest tether for for rope walking so i just clip i clip it together right so that sits in front of me and then i can i can just clip that to my system and now i have something which will pull my system up as i'm rope walking and then also on the left side buck and billy ray style i have a whistle just in case okay so that's item number one customization number one is suspenders highly recommend it number two is this little thing which is pretty sweet they're expensive um to be totally on i can't remember i can't remember what it's called it's uh it's made by rock exotica a transporter i think it's a transporter yeah anyway so yeah it's uh i use this uh it's right on my right side that's where i hang my saw so what i so on the monkey beaver it comes with it comes with this ring and then this snap so that's made for your chainsaw right you take your your chainsaw lanyard where is mine here's my chainsaw later so on my chainsaw lanyard the end with the ring would snap i'd put that on the saw and then the other end i would i would attach that to that ring right and then if i want to hang my saw up you could use the snap that comes with the saddle or in my case i use the transporter instead right okay so suspenders transporter i have two of these carry tools one on either side that i use for you know rings or snapping a rope on whatever else i have to carry i only use i pretty much only use the transporter for my saw okay next i have i keep an extra climbing carabiner oval i use a long um sling with another this is actually a steel and i just use that for like redirects or sometimes you you use this as a foot loop or whatever standing if you can't get a good foothold now this is a newer this is a newer addition to my belt this is this was a a suggestion from from a youtube subscriber i can't remember who that was sorry um they said this this retractable keyback thing which i have attached to my little um cbf climber's best friend notch makes these little wedges which are awesome but anyway this is a four foot retractable thing so this sits i snap this on the rear belt loop okay so it's directly behind me so anytime i need the wedge i can just reach behind me grab it and pull it and i can use it and then it snaps back okay then on my left side i have this is from a second-hand store it's a little pouch for uh for a camera i use it for my my phone when i'm climbing and i just i just cut a little cut a couple holes in the back and put this little through it so i keep my phone with me when i'm climbing and then i have uh this is my quickie shackle love these things i use these all the time so i keep one on there and then the last thing is on my other carry tool this is on my left side i have i just keep this at all times this is this is a you know an x rigging ring on an ultra sling i think this is uh five feet long and i just use this so much i use it so much that i just keep it on my belt at all times it's small and light it doesn't doesn't bug me at all so i just leave it there okay and then i said that was last but that's not last so these are a couple um newer additions right so i i'm running a double a double bridge setup on my monkey beaver it comes with one bridge which attaches to these these rigging plates okay but i've i've thrown a second bridge on in addition so where i attached it i this is 7 and i just put it through i put it through the middle hole of of the the paw the cat's paw rigging plate and then i just used the the double fisherman's whatever you want to call it scaffold same as same as the bridge that comes on it so now i have two bridges and then i have two rings i have a ring on each bridge so what i do is when i'm climbing normally with one system i'll just clip into both right and that gives me redundancy right so if one bridge failed i have a second one but uh what it also means is let's say i want to uh climb let's say i want to use my long lanyard and i have a i my main lanyard is really long it's like 18 19 feet long so i use that like a like a short secondary climbing system right so let's say i want to remain clipped in to my my main timing point over here with my main system but i want to use my long lanyard in this direction let's say what i can do is i can just unclip from unclip my system from the secondary bridge right so i can stay clipped in with my main system on the one bridge and then on the second bridge i can clip in with a second system whether it's a long lanyard or a secondary climbing rope or whatever so it gives me a lot of versatility so both of these systems can move independently to orient themselves depending on your angles right it makes a big difference so i love that i was running for a while for quite a while i was running just the double bridge but i had just one ring around both which was just purely for redundancy but i like this system more where i have two bridges two rings i can use them independently or i can just clip into both right so it gives me redundancy and versatility okay and then the last thing the actual last thing of customization for my bunkie beaver is i have this dmm uh focus swivel that i keep on my left side cat's paw okay so these days i've moved away completely from using the the upper d's the upper attachment points for my lanyard i don't use them at all i only use the lower attachment points which are the rigging plate the rigging plate is made to be a secondary attachment point for your lanyard but i use it exclusively now so on on the one side i have this swivel so what that means is we find my lanyard here what it means is um my lanyard is free to uh rotate on the swivel so it's always going to be able to orient itself properly even when i'm on a crazy angle you know what i mean so this this is an amazing improvement i just put this on this year i always keep my my lanyard on the one side i always attach it on the one side like the the system portion of it so it goes on my left side so i just put the swivel on my left side and it's awesome okay so i hope that makes sense and i don't know hope you can get some value out of that if you haven't uh if you haven't tried a monkey beaver saddle and you're looking to you know i i think your i think the recommendation is every five years minimum you should replace your saddle so if uh you know if your saddle's getting up there in age i would highly recommend trying out a monkey beaver if you can borrow a friend try it out uh it's it's a solid investment and uh highly recommended by me right until next time you

Channel: EducatedClimber

Views: 22,211

Rating: 4.9194632 out of 5

Keywords: arborist, tree, work, climbing, chainsaw, rope, knots, ropes, knot, trees, arb, rigging, roping, educated climber, climbing arborist, srt, tree climbing, tree work, drt climbing, ddrt climbing, monkeybeaver, monkey beaver, monkey, beaver, saddle, climbing belt, climbing harness, harness

Id: 2uvz71wkleQ

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020