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Re: [at-l] Re: Hammocks and trees

We've all seen what deer, moose, and bears do to trees.  Guess you
could just consider the AT hiker another marker of territory. 

I've always been told, your only going to damage the tree if you cut
through the bark around the entire trunk.  You are going to mangle the
bark with a hammock, but it's just like a haircut, already dead
material.  Unsightly perhaps, but so are shelters IMO.  For those of
you toying with the hammock idea, you might want to look into buying a
climbing ascender.  This would be really useful for getting the
hammock reallllly tight.  You can probably also get around the D-ring
requirement if you use a water knot to tie your webbing (e-mail me for
info).

When I built high ropes courses, we used drill thru the center of tree
for a large anchor bolt, then safety wrapped the trunk with steel
cable.  I'm sure the trees didn't initially appreciate the spike
through them, but none died.  And in some older courses, the bark
eventually grew qround the safety cable (talk about a safe system). 
Before people get angry, there really isn't another way to make the
ropes courses safe w/o going thru the tree, around is not sufficient
to be able to tension properly.

The tree doc that we used to consult with said we would only get in
trouble if we stripped the bark off the tree.

Doesn't PA prohibit dog tying for other reasons besides tree damage? 
I'd think it is to prohibit hunters from treeing animals.


---KC <felton@bluenet.net> wrote:
>
> 
> >  KC, can you convince the state of PA that ropes won't
> > hurt trees?  The seem to feel differntly and have made it
> > illegal to tie a dog to a tree while hiking <sigh>.  My
> > dogs would really love to dump the weight of their tie
> > out stakes...they're getting to be such ounce weenies <VBG>
> 
> A dog will work the rope around and around cutting into the tree. A
dog
> could work the rope down to the "wood" of the tree and if the dog was
> successful in working the rope into the wood and all around the tree
(like
> a full circle cut into the wood) it could and would hurt the tree. KC
> 


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