Tree Climber Knots Every Groundman Should Know

hello this is bino welcome back to my channel i'm an arborist and a tree climber specialist and what i like to do on my channel is to share tree climbing techniques to beginners and experts what i have planned for today is to talk about and show some of the knots that ground men should be able to use when i first started as a groundman um the trimmers or the crew leaders who work with me they had me um learn how to throw into the tree so what he would do or they would do is we go up to a tree and they'd point out a crotch and say hey can you get this set up well they got their their self situated to do the climb so we would use a shot bag already got the shot back into the tree but some of the knots that you would use for us we would use a anchor hitch with a slip on the the bag itself i'll tie that in a minute but first what i'll show you is some of the um the the clove hitch and a half hitch that i would use to connect to the rope so um you know we've already got our our line set up and then the next thing we would do is undo the anchor hitch and it's nice to have a slip because then all you do is pull this and it comes undone so to connect the rope we would use a a a clove hitch and a couple of half hitches so in doing the clove hitch and the mid line you're not using the end you could do the end if you wanted to but a lot of times we would just do inline you would do a loop and then you make another loop and after you make that loop you pass it behind the other once you do that now you get the rope set it inside and then you pull this tight and you'll see that that's a clove hitch okay once you got that set up put it kind of tight then you'll make another loop in your line once you do that loop now you're gonna snug it up once you suck snug it up now you can see that when the rope goes up into a crotch and even if it's a tight crotch it's going to be a lot easier to manage through a crotch so once you got that set now you grab your other line your your downline of the shot bag and you send it up over the crotch that you're installing to and so what was really cool about doing this for the trimmer is if it was a big tree we would also set up a secondary line for an emergency access so he would get you know his stuff ready and we would be setting this up for him once you're undone you know you bring your line back down it's so simple to undo you just put a little bit of slack in it it pops off now you grab the clove you move it a little and it'll come undone see there you go and it pretty much falls open so the next thing you want to do is to do the slip anchor so for me i always start underneath the ring and i bring it toward me and now this is a long part of the rope behind me i'll do one complete loop my fingers are sticking sorry now i go one one complete wrap around the eye go around the long part and then i throw a bite behind or into the loop and then i cinch it up now this is there's so many different ones you can use but this is one that i've like to use a lot so once you have this done it's important to put the uh the throw line away now what you don't want to do is get a throw line and just shove it in the bag because then it knots up and then you're in bad shape so a way you can do it is something called flaking you get your line and you're going to manage as you're throwing this in you want to make sure that there's no sticks that are on your line because if it gets stuck in there when you throw it it can really knot everything up and flaking simple all you do hold on one hand up and just toss it in the back what's really amazing about flaking it is once you put it in it never really gets knotted up when you throw your bag on another tree so now you set it in place there's a little pouch in this shop bag where you could put the the ball and now you're ready for the next tree as as the climber was getting his gear ready he'd start climbing this tree and so if we had multiple trees they would have me go to the next tree he would already showed me where he wants to be and as he's getting ready i would have went to the next tree and start throwing the bag to the next one another good thing to know how to do is to connect a leash to a chainsaw now there's what you're going to use is a girth hitch through this loop some climbers like to have it on the handle and then some will like to have it on the ring on the chainsaw some chainsaws come with rings and if not you could just use the handle so the way you're going to do that is you'll throw the loop in here and once you put it through here now you're going to get the clip part and just send it through now really simple to do this ring will go all the way around oops all the way around and pop through that that loop now this is essentially it's a girth hitch um there you go for that one the next way to do it you just undo this send us right back through is to for this ring here you'll send this little loop through the the ring and you'll do the same thing put the clip through here and this big eye will go through here and now you're going to cinch it up now there you go and that's ready to go then so the climber already asked you to send up the saw to him since you've already got your leash on what you can do is with this clip you'll go to the the climber's line and you get a slip knot set up so you'll make a loop in your line and then you send a bite through and that's your loop then you get your clip and you connect it in and then you yell at the climber all clear ready to go you can take your saw then the climber what he'll do he'll take this all up to him so it's good to know those mid-line knots like that slipknot we did with the chainsaw another one is a midline clove hitch and we did it with the the shop bag but this is to send up gear and we'll do it and show you how to send a pole saw um the thing is if if you don't know how to tie the midline clove you've got a lot of rope in your bag and the guy the climber if you use the end of the line on which a lot of people some guys don't know how to do mid-line knots they'll get the end of the line and they'll tie the equipment there the climb reps up top oh he's going to get ticked because it's a lot of energy to spend to pull all that extra rope um so to do a midline clove i'll show it um the other way we did two loops here's another way to do it where you just cross your hands over each other and you bring them right back across you don't bend your wrists or anything and now you put one in front of the other and now you have a midline clove and then what you'll do is throw it on your hook here and then you'll tighten it up there you go now you don't have to just put it on a hook you could also put it on the long part of the rope if you were just sending an extension you could do the same way but midline knot midline clove crossing your hands there you go and to undo you just pop it off and see how it falls out so what you want to do is you have your rope you cross one hand over and you cross the other one over so you have a cross like this and then you just pass each other keeping your wrist straight and now what you do is just put one in front of the other and cross them back to each other now you got a clove so then you could then you just throw it back on your hook and if if you wanted just to not put it on a hook you could throw it on the the the extension itself you know and you could send it up this way really easy and then once the climber gets it it falls out pretty nice and he would call up to him and he'll pull it up the next couple on the knots that i want to show you will be a sheet bend and a quick hitch now these knots are good for ground and no because um the climber might be setting up a rigging line or maybe he wants to pull off the top and what it is it's also a midline knot so you're not using the end of the rope so to do a sheet bend you'll put a bite in the climber's line so that this is connected to the climber you'll put a bite in the line now you're going to get the line that you're going to send up to him you throw it through the bite you go all the way around and then you go straight back across all right and now what you'll do is you'll grab both ends of this line and this line you'll snug it up and once you get it tight now you could drop to one line each make sure you put some tension on it so now it's ready for the climber to accept you'll tell him line's on and he'll bring it up so the next one that i want to show you is another one that that you have to deal with less once it's up in the air and strictly these are mostly just for sending up lines so you'll do the same thing where you'll create a bite in the line and this time what you're going to do is you'll just throw the line over the other line that you're going to send up over and then you're going to get your hand you're going to bring it through the bite you're going to come around and grab the smaller part of the line and pull it straight back through once you do that you cinch it up pull it tight drop to one line cinch it now there you go the quick hitch now until i'm ready to go and he'll pull it up another real good knot to use or learn how to use for a ground man is a a bowline they're good loops for for tie-downs and things like that so the way you want to do it is you'll make a loop in your line and once you've got a loop you're going to get the short end of your line you're going to bring it up through the loop you're going to go around the larger part of the line and then you're going to bring it right back through and so what's really good about this is and then you'll pull it snug it tight it's going to be correct when the short end is inside the loop now what's real good about this is they're good for say if you're going to hook it onto a ball of a truck or a tie down you could put a lot of load on this and once you got a load you just break the back and then it comes undone now another one and some people will like it if they're gonna do like say pull a tree over they like to use a bowline on a bite now to do a bowline on a bite what you do is get a a bite of rope and you're going to make a loop in that bite and once you do that you're going to feed the hanging part of this bite you're going to send it through the loop bring it up through once it's here you'll throw your hand inside grab the two pieces here and then bring this bite up to the top and now you're going to feed it slowly through what you want to do is keep it in order and snug it up so now you're going to know it's correct once you get it snug you can pull either part of this and they're not going to run or slide now some people like this because it's extra like an extra piece to say hook it on a ball if you're going to drop a tree you throw this on the ball of a truck and and you know it's a little bit some people feel it's better to take this off what you want to do is you go to the back you break it open and now you feed it back through to the bottom bring it out and slide it out untied pulling on a bite another good knot to use is or learn how to use is a running damage so sometimes the climber might want you or the crew leader might want you to set up a short tree and there might be you know things in the way so you might want to direct the way it's going to fall so you get a bra your rope over a branch or a higher point in the tree and what you'll do is you'll get this running bolling set up so you can choke it and then with that line you're going to be using it to pull so to do a running bowling you uh grab your line and just like you do the the regular bone the difference is for me what i like to do is i'll put a the the short end of the rope over my arm i'll make the loop and once i make that loop now with this part that i put over my arm i'll feed it through the loop and i'll go around the long part and i'll bring this through and now what i'm going to do is create a regular bowline but that tail captured the long part of the line and so now what i do do is send it up so let me let me do it one more time so you got the long part of the rope it's up over the crotch now here's your shorter end so so you don't get confused what i like to do is just put one piece the short end over my arm then i'll make a loop and once i do that now i drop that short end i go through the loop i go inside the loop and around the upward growing part of the line and i send it right back through here now i grab these two pieces of that tail and i cinch it up here's your bowline and it's captured the long part of the line and now you send it up to the top so now it's ready if you're going to drop this tree now you got a high point you can put your um bowline on a bite or a regular bone connect it to a truck or a tractor and make the notch cut and they could pull it over about ground men i think that ground men are a real important part of tree care and the more that the ground men know you know the different knot names and how to tie them and the more that a groundman can do can help speed up a job so the crew leaders for me what they showed me to do is setting up trees and some of the knots to send like midline knots and some of the loop knots all of that really helps the job there's other things that groundmen do such as say if they're on the ground they pay attention for the climber like power lines and things like that having a relationship between the climber and the ground men and the ground men learning all of the different techniques and even the names of the different things and knots that they're going to use will definitely make a job better and a crew better hope you guys enjoyed that video comment like and subscribe hit that notification bell if you like what we do and share our videos with your friends all right take care we'll see you next time

Channel: Bino H

Views: 47,430

Keywords: Groundman, Tree Groundman, Tree climibng, Groundman Knots, Bowline, running Bowline, Bowline on a bite, Chainsaws, tree chainsaw, Girth hitch, clove hitch, sheet bend, quick hitch, pole saw, tree work, slipknot, Slip anchor hitch, Bowline on a bight

Id: J0Wba6jG2Dc

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021