Rope ladder update

I finally tested the rope ladder I've built. Well, I tested it yesterday and it was kind of a failure, but a learning experience.

Anyway: it does work. The workflow is:

1. Probably don't try this without rope climbing experience/training and a secured harness!

2. Use a thin throw line with a weight to make a pulley over a branch that will be the support. For the weight I used a steel carabiner that's normally attached to the top of the ladder. It's big enough to be a decent weight, you need some heft or you'll struggle to go high. I tried a thin mason line first but it tangled too easily. What worked was a thin braided nylon line, but it still tangled a bit and wasn't very smooth. I wanted something cheap and wasn't going to get a proper low-friction arborist line for an experiment.

3. Rage that your throw line gets caught by some small bush branches around you.

4. Attach one end of the throw line to a proper rope (I used the same 8mm polyester rope, about 20m of it). Pull the rope over the branch using the throw line.

5. Attach the other end of the support rope to the ladder. I used two steel carabiners for easy linking, and "figure-eight on a bight" knots to attach carabiners to ropes.

6. Pull the rope to raise the ladder up.

7. Secure the free end of the rope near the base of the tree. I used a cam buckle strap as partial support, with two loops of the rope around the trunk for additional strength.

8. Very important: use a cam buckle strap or just a rope to affix the bottom of the ladder to the tree. Otherwise it'll move around wildly when you climb, making it incredibly hard.

So. Choosing the right support branch is incredibly important. You don't want the line up there to be too far away from the trunk. You want the ladder as straight as possible. And it will still be pretty hard.

I mean, climbing itself is not that hard, but you still need to do stuff when up there. I'll reiterate: this is very dangerous without proper support/harness.

These images are from today, when I actually installed a meshcore repeater on a tree. The main issue is, how to manipulate things with basically one hand? I used a cam buckle strap to attach the device to the tree. The tree was a pine, and if you don't know, pine bark is made of small "plates" that kinda work like scales. That made moving the strap up pretty hard because it was getting caught up on the edges of these "scales". I guess it made the strap slightly easier to not fall down? Also, pines (at least the ones around here) have basically no thick branches. I was lucky to find one suitable. And, for this specific purpose the tree needed to be facing south and getting decent light for the solar panel. Don't use pines if you can help it.

In the end, I chickened out and all that I managed was maybe 3-4 meters high. I wasn't sure the branch I used for support wouldn't snap; it supported me so far but it was dead which means weaker. Maybe not using the strap but some nails/screws would be easier, but I didn't want to harm the tree.

The repeater works. It's not a great build (and I think the antenna is too close to the trunk), but as a first try I learned a whole lot. I'll probably use two telescopic grabbers next time though ;)