Derek T. Robinson

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What follows is a description of how I performed some tree climbing in order to place Hobo Temp/RH sensors in the lower canopy of an eastern deciduous forest in southeastern Michigan. Much of this was ad-hoc and I'd recommend visiting professional sites before doing any of your own climbing (e.g. Tree Climbers International). This portion of the website, based on my fieldwork is still under construction.
The first step is to lay down a sheet to prevent the string from getting tangled around twigs, trees, leaves, or other things.
Then we tie the string to the weight that will be shot over branches in the tree. Andrew Bell is with me here and helped me try out this proceedure in the arboretum in ann arbor.
Lay out about 150 ft of the string onto the sheet. Tie the other end to the light rope. We will use the string to pull the light rope over the tree, and the light rope to pull the heavy static rope over. When we tied the strings/ropes together we used duck tape to try and cover any knots that could snag on the tree or its branches.
Perhaps this should be done first so that you lay the sheet down in the appropriate location, but here I am spotting the position on the tree that I wish to slingshot the weight over. Notice that here I used a shirt under the string instead of the sheet. The sheet worked much better! :-)

The slingshot method can be used with one or three people. With one person, put the slingshot handle under your foot. You will almost drag your foot backwards to release the slingshot so do not put the handle too far onto your foot.
Then place the weight within the slingshot pocket and grab the slingshot handles.
Stretch your arms up as far as you can. The tension is VERY HIGH so be careful. Taking the slingshot or weight anywhere in your body will not tickle. Anyway, lean forward to get a forward moving angle and place your target location between your hands so that you are looking directly at the target. Also make sure you're shoulders are square to the desired location or you will shoot to the side of the target.
When you drag your foot back, keep your arms as close to the starting position as possible to ensure an accurate shot. Its just like golf, don't move your head to watch until after you've taken your shot. Some protective eye gear would be useful too. The string often gets tangled but it is also fairly easy to untagle it, be patient and remove any knots in the string before and after shooting to ensure it doesn't snag or break on the tree or its branches.
In this photo, Andrew is tying the light rope to the kite string. You can see the grey weight haning over Andrew's right shoulder. If the shot is good then you can start to wind the string up as you pull the light rope over, to save time. If the shot is bad, you should still pull the remainder of the string over the tree on the weight side. If you try and pull the weight back over the tree there is a high probability that it will get caught in the tree and you will lose it.


After pulling the heavy static rope over the tree and tying it off. Connect the jumars to the line and tie yourself into the upper one with a runner or webbing that has a length about equal to your torso. Similarly tie yourself to the lower jumar with a length from about your elbow to your hand. This secures your body to both jumars. The webbing was used to create two even length foot holds that are attached to the lower jumar at the center. The idea then is to raise your upper hand (jumar) as far as possible so that your weight is held by the upper jumar. Then raise your feet and the lower jumar close to the upper jumar. Now you are in a sitting position. Stand up to take your weight off the upper jumar, placing your weight on the lower jumar, and raise your upper hand as far as possible. Next sit down to place your weight again on the upper jumar and you can raise your feet and lower jumar the same as before. Effectively you are inch-worming your way up the rope. (sorry I don't have more or better photos)
A helmet and crash mat would provide more safety! Here I ame about 20-25 ft above the ground. The worst part is that I am afraid of heights and need to get up to 50 ft!
Here you can see that I'm using a runner attached to the upper jumar and to a carabiner on my harness. Also you can see the quick draws hanging from the harness belt as well as the tape measure. Once fairly high in the tree I dropped the one end of the tape measure down to the ground and had the other person inform me when I was 50 ft up into the tree. Pulling the tape measure up the tree by yourself also makes things more complicated. The more people the faster, safer, smoother, and easier the climbing process.
I have not described the descending portion of the climb and I have no photos to help illustrate. However, switching off the ascending devices onto the figure 8 can be difficult and certainly is the most dangerous part of the climb. Make sure that you are anchored to a branch when you do switch to the descending device. I highly recommend getting expert knowledge of this proceedure in advance. Lastly, performing a species identification prior to placing the hobo units may also be helpful as it may help those unaware of what poison ivy looks like to avoid such a horrible case as this!