Production vs Recreational Climbing

2chops wrote:

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Only 4 customers would be affected for 30 minutes. We were told no. Ok then, how about some "snakes" then. No. Why not, we asked. We were told, and I quote, " If "snakes" are installed, and someone gets electrocuted, then the power co. could be sued because the installation of the "snakes" is an admission that the trim was too dangerous to do without an outage." Fine then give us the outage. Nope. Not happening....
Ron

Thats just stupid! That should be their work to put snakes on the line!

I also had similar problems in past with some foreman of the utility grid. The funny thing was, when I spoke with the manager of the grid that there are standarts for working near powerlines and they wouldn't do their job, we also can't do the job on this tree. I send the manager a long letter with the Austrian standarts of treeprunning and standarts of lineclearance. We also have a law that the companies have to use this standarts. And the next thing would be if some other company would work without the standarts for the grid we also will go to the advocate and sue bove. Because we also have a law against distortion of competition.
And in Austria we don't have a problem with switching of powerlines for 30minutes or 1hour because high voltage lines have always a second way, we called that "circle line", don't know this in english. The problem was the foreman of the grid, he worked hardly.

And what a wonder, now the foreman has to switch of the powerlines. The boss of the grid said, we spend more money if we don't have an accident.

But I know thats not easy!
But climbing near 7,5kV without snakes is suicid!

Regards
Gerhard

Funny thing when making money is involved in a tree climb. The ethics of the climb seem to waver. Keeping clean climbing ethics seems a bit better to control when you work for yourself. But working for other folks where production is the ruling king, welll.....ethics seem to take a back row seat. It is so hard to keep ethics on top with the money thing tugging at your sleeve with production managers (often not climbers) reporting to higher ups. I’ve heard of some climbers quitting because of poor ethical standards. But today’s economy sure hurts that principal, with so many in line to get a job in America. What a world!


Peter Treeman Jenkins
Founder
TCI

I like to dabble in both recreational and work climbing.

There are thrills you get when work climbing that you just can't get when you are recreational climbing. Like making big cuts, felling tops and the ride and sway associated with those events.

But there is also a peace and harmony side of climbing that is hard to feel when you are destroying something. This feeling is easier to get in tune with when doing recreational climbing.

A balance is needed, like all things.....yin and yang.

Amen and well put. balAnce.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us Ron. I wish someone would help these big companies learn that it is best for them to keep the workers safe.

An interesting thing about Gerhard and his wife Christine. They are a married couple that does tree work together. Christine recently won top title in the throw weight event women's division at the ISA international competitions. A real dead eye shooter!

I've never known or seen a working climber marriage. A real team. They had a few new things they taught me when they took the Facilitators Course last year in Atlanta. Very impressive climbers.

Peter Treeman Jenkins

treeman wrote:

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They had a few new things they taught me when they took the Facilitators Course last year in Atlanta. Very impressive climbers.

Peter Treeman Jenkins

Peter you tend to hype, but thanks for your compliment.
We learned so much from you and Patty!
For example the thing with throwlines in trees! After your training we also can use throwlines in trees, this was a really new idea for us.

And Patty showed us the structure and organisation of Treeclimbers International. That was also impressive. Thank you Patty!

Now that is a good base for us to establish recreational treeclimbing in Austria.