Any tricks to quickly put rope up & down trees?

I want to attach a climbing rope to a tree or other high structures. This is not to be permanent as it would be stolen or be ruined by rain so I want to put it up and take it down with ease. The end of my rope has a loop on it, like this

I was thinking I could get a long adjustable webbing strap, throw the buckle end up and over my tree branch and attach it through my loop. Then I would secure it on some other tree or object on the ground and adjust the webbing length so the rope goes up near the top of the branch.

Has anybody else any tips or ideas? It would be better if I needed no lower structure to secure it to.

I was thinking I might be able to climb a tree and put a hook on it up high, then I could hide some long stick or bamboo or telescopic device and lift my rope up by the loop and put it on my hook.

Or is there some rock climbing device I could buy?

I've not had to do this myself, but it is an intriguing problem. I have a climbing rope hung in my hallway from the banister upstairs. To hang this, I simply passed one end of the rope around the banister and then through the loop I had made in the other end and pulled tight. You could use the same principle:

-Get a second rope; lets call this a 'line' to avoid confusion. This could be thin, like washing line, for example.

-Tie the line to the loop of your existing rope.

-To put the rope up, toss the end of your line over the branch then pull it until the middle of your rope is at the height of the branch. The rope would then be hanging equally on both sides.

-Now pass the end of the rope through the loop in its other end and pull tight. If your rope isn't long enough for this, you would have to put a line on the other end of the rope as well and use that line instead to perform the previous step.

-To remove your rope, pull on the line. This SHOULD be enough to bring the loop of the rope down to a level where you can pull the rest of the rope through it, thus unlooping the rope from the branch.

As I say, I haven't tested this, but it should be easy enough to try. The only disadvantage is that the line from the loop will hang down next to your rope. Shouldn't be too much of an issue though.

Great idea, I will try this on my chinup bar first.

The thin line hanging down is no real problem. I will have to tie a small weight to the line so it can be thrown up in the air, when in place I could pull the thin line outwards at an angle and the weight would keep it away from the climbing area.

I tried the second rope/line idea on my chinup bar, it sort of worked and had trouble in the area I expected.

In the picture you can see I have large knots in the blue rope. These got caught in the loop as I tried to pull it back over after having my full weight on it. 2 things will help this, a larger loop so it is slacker, and taping up my blue knots or removing them. I would put lots of tape all around both knots & rope & the metal clips so there is a smooth surface so it cannot get caught as easily.

2000 lb wench for 50 bucks from harbor freight.

Joshua Naterman said:

2000 lb wench for 50 bucks

If she's that big I'm not paying more than $20! :wink:

I wanted something light that I can carry about cycling and just hook up and have a climb in various locations. There are trees beside my house where it might not be robbed but I don't want local small kids injuring themselves.

Sounds like a winch is what you need then! Pull the rope up when not using it, let it down when you do, you can use a remote control.

You're going to need something electrical, unless you are going to put a ladder on the tree so that you can easily climb up and hang the rope.

You know, the alternate way to do this is to put a chain on the branch and hang the rope off of a large hook. You could use a long section of pipe to lift your lizard line (what you tie to the big rope, preferably with a ~1000 lb strength, that's pretty small stuff) and a pulley, or just lift the heavy rope (will be difficult) and hook it onto the chain directly.

Sorry, there are no easy solutions outside of the winch. Running some underground PVC and then RMC up the tree to an outdoor junction box is really the way to go.

I work as an arborist ( climb trees for a living )

Best way to do it is toss one side of the rope over a limb. this can be acheived by using a small string with a 2lb weight on the end and then tying rope on and pulling over the rope you want up. The you can tie a running bowline around base of tree if it is just tempory.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... imbing-it/