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This page has a lot of graphics, if you get bored waiting for the photos, click my
This page shows how my chains are set up, read the construction story in the
My tree in the
backyard. That is my neighbors house behind the tree, their garage is
a few feet to the right. You can see why this was a major pain to cut
down to this point (the tree originally extended at least 20 feet
beyond all the stubs). I invented a system of ropes to cut the tree
into small pieces and lower them slowly, but probably only avoided
disaster by luck. Now I understand why arborists don't have how-to
books, this sort of work should be done by pros.
View from my
porch roof. The branch that I use for overhanging roof routes extends
15 ft. up from the main trunk. This is probably rare to find a branch
of this size, I expect most people will only have the main trunk to
climb, or short overhangs.
Closeup of one
of the chains. Notice that the chain goes over the top of a lag screw
eye, not through it. The theory is that it will transfer more of the
pull to the back of the tree as the chain squeezes the trunk. I can't
prove this is true, but it makes sense that the chain would put more
downward pull on the eyes if it went through them. Note the screw
link holding the tails of the chain together, the rope uses the ends
of the chain for pulleys (the other one can't be seen in this photo).
A screw link attaches the chain to the eye on this side, another eye
180 degrees around the trunk is the same. This system has lots of
redundancy, and the chain is rated for much more stress than this
setup can generate.
Climbing the
overhang. There is a hook, made out of a bent open screw eye, on the
right side of the trunk by the fork above my arm. The rope needs to
be hooked while climbing on the bottom of the tree to prevent
swinging back into my carport. I have to spend too much time swinging
and whipping the rope into the hook, but I can't come up with a
better system. My local climbing gym has the same hooks, and I have
the same problem .
Some of my
woody holds. This route is for the kids and has big, positive holds.
The top two holds have a 3/8 screw inset into the center, and a deck
screw to the side of it to prevent turning. The rest of the tree has
smaller holds held with two deck screws, use a band saw and get
creative. The overhang has some buckets made by layering two pieces
of wood.
My attempt at
using natural rock for holds. Considering the time I spent drilling
and carving, I would have done better buying a hold.
My tree has
some natural features that are fun. There are some small bumps and
cracks on all sides, but most are beyond my skills. Each of the main
branches had a large hollow underneath that was nearly filled with
bark. After the bark was cleaned out it makes a great slot, allowing
practice hand jams without the scrapes.
Metolius has instructions for building a plywood wall.
The Climbing Wall Resource has very detailed instructions.
I had some e-mail conversations with a few people on rec.climbing a year ago. Robert Ternes was helpfull, he had worked as an arborist. Jay Hills risked his life to help me trim the tree, Bob Schopis took some of the photos. I am always open to help, e-mail me at jwagner_mail@lycos.com