Hey everybody, its team Eugene and the tree thinking podcast. I'm Jamie slate nerd. I

have no doubt,

Corey shields, and Andrew Marin.

With me today, our last video, we had just received the fusion tether from TreeStuff. And we did some first impressions and a little climb on it. Today, we've all been in the field with it for maybe two weeks now. So just kind of an update on things we've noticed about the tether. One thing I've noticed, personally is the attachment point here. For my chest tether, when I'm up in the tree, and I go to take it off, I feel like I kind of got to fight it a little bit because it's really rigid, I prefer the loop on my fixed tether. So simple fix, I just tied a little loop a throw line, right at that attachment points. The tether to stiff tethers really nice, you know, keeps it going up the rope really good. I noticed, I usually climb on a Rocco carabiner. And I just wanted to try something else. So I had this DMM D shaped one. And when I put a carabiner on, I like to rotate it all the way around. It's just much more of a fight like I can't even do it with this one, then on my hitch climber, but I still do like how smooth it is I like you know the handle. Like all the pulleys built in the spring, it does function really well, those are just a couple things I noticed. Let me go one more thing. A plus is that attachment point they're finding a tree and want to do a little traverse, let's say my Captain Hook or something, it's a really nice spot to attach and kind of move yourself around the tree.

tried it out with various links of Prusik and various shapes and styles of Karabiner. And I also noticed that that the D shape and the pear shaped both don't really necessarily lend themselves easily to finagle it so that the lock is on the bottom. So the oval shape is definitely best, I found that the length of the Prusik doesn't make too much of a difference. I started when I started climbing using wrenches and Prusik. And things I got a really long one. And it actually works really well with this. So that's kind of a plus, but a shorter one suits it just as well. So those are the two things that I've noticed. And

so I'll just first I guess I'll start off with the positives. I do like how how it tends I like how stiff it is. I like that attachment point. I like that it's all attached. Again, as we kind of echoed in that first video. You know, transferring it within the tree is really, really easy, you can clip it to yourself, and then just kind of let it all kind of come off the rope, and you're not worried about losing a pulley or part of the system at all. As far as gripes I do have a few of them. The first one being with my climbing system, I like to attach my Knee Ascender. As I'd mentioned in that initial thoughts, I like to attach my Knee Ascender what would be right about here on like a hitch climber pulley. It would be nice if it had just like a half Becket or even just like a little loop not life rated or anything like that right here. So that you're not like running up through your carabiner or running up through your bridge to try to connect to that point. That's just my one of my few gripes. The other one, which is a little bit more serious is that with the soft tethers, there's not actually anywhere points on it between the rope wrench and the tether itself on this, when you get down to that stop right there. And it's actually we'll get a close up view of it a little bit later. But you can see that there's a little bit of paint coming off on this. And I imagine with prolonged use, you know, this has only been a week or two with prolonged use that might wear into that rope wrench and eventually wear it out. You know, kind of a design fix that I could see with that as plugging in like a little piece of rubber or something like a rubber I stopped to stop that from from happening, but I could see it wearing both the tether itself away and then the rope wrench itself and one other thing I like about it, you can use it as a choker system. So I use this on a spar poll a couple of weeks ago, and it's not as efficient as some other systems but just like any other rope wrench, it does allow you to get pretty close to it and you don't kind of make those cuts in a choker setup on a smartphone.

So what I wanted to test out on this is to see how a stiff tether would work going weaving up and down through four branches. I did a bird that had a ton of branches on it. And I purposely kind of weaved my line through it which was a total pain in the butt. Not the most efficient route but I kind of wanted to see how this manipulated through a canopy. It worked great. It because when I was climbing on it, when I when I was kind of walking up through it it sag down Mona so I had to make way for myself to get through So this just kind of followed me right up the rope. And then when I came back down, I was worried that it, you know, get caught sideways on branches or something, and I just didn't have any of that. So, I was pretty stoked with the way that worked out. Um, the other thing I was doing is I was doing a removal at one point. And so I would take the Phone Clip the other end as I worked my way up, and I would throw it over a branch, and then I can kind of clip it into this attachment point. And it was still on my bridge. And so it was a way to use it now. I mean, I guess technically as double rope, and I was using it more as a positioning lanyard at the time. But that's kind of a nice feature to have this year, so that it wasn't, you know, another place on my bridge or off on the side, it was able to just be right all part of the same setup. I really liked it, it was smooth, it kind of it was what I thought it would be. For the most part, there wasn't a whole lot of surprises climbing on it. That was my experience in last couple of weeks. So I have one more thing to add.

Yeah, I remember, we were kind of concerned that the stop here wouldn't allow you to collapse the whole system. But that's not an issue at all. I saw some comments online. If people worried about that. Yeah, we had the same concerns. But yeah, if you're out and you need to pull a bunch of slack, you can simply do that with one hand. That's, that's super cool. set them up, do some climbing,

I got to do it. All right. So when installing it, I've been getting this thing on first, especially in your if you're up in the tree doing a transfer once that's on your whole thing's contained right there, you just have to get this boy closed in.

Tie your hitch.

And then it's ready to go. is one of the features that I like about this is how easy it is. And everything's all connected in one piece. So fast setup. Well, it's fast with this thing. You know it, it just kind of comes together.

All right, we just finished a crime in this big beautiful Oregon, white oaks, I noticed my hitch combination matters a little, little more, I have to tweak it because I usually find with the hitch climber centric, and it's got a really slim profile. So it helps break that that hitch whereas this one with the newt, I believe is what this is it will get sucked in there. And I get up in the tree and just be frightened to 10 my hits, but I switched to a vt and you know, problem solved. It's just tinkering with you're not.

Again, I really want to point out that it's almost exclusively oval carabiner friendly, for the attachment. Just it's just like and even then it's kind of a little challenging to swivel it to orient it how you want. But that's not necessarily a deal breaker. And then just kind of same as what Jamie just said, it takes there's a lot more dialing in. But once you get that sweet pointed, it really sings. It's just

like a new piece of gear exactly, just

like with anything else. I'm still really love this, I found myself you know, holding on to this, I use the fix in this intermittently, last couple of weeks, and I found myself like grabbing the fix for this, this little nice little handle here. So that's kind of cool. It's already a popular thing for me, just something to consider like the carabiners will fit through this bottom attachment point, but not the top one. So something to consider. I was like, What the heck, just because I was trying to attach my lanyard to it.

Today I was mainly focusing on kind of limb walking with these beautiful white oaks of these big sprawling limbs. I was trying to run out to the end and then come back and kind of feel how it worked. I was climbing on the VTX I didn't really have too much problem pulling this lack one of the things that um, you know, this could be just getting used to being on the rope wrench again, I've been up until we started trying these out. I've been doing a lot of the rope runner bro. So it's kind of been getting used to making sure the right Prusik is in to catch it, you know, and how many wraps and all that stuff. Yeah. And so I've found myself kind of focusing on that and thinking about that a little bit. I don't know that that's tether related, but you know, just kind of one of the things I was thinking about was climbing up there and getting set But I've been enjoying it, you know, I mean, all the things you guys were saying as far as you know, the carabiner turning and noticed all that stuff as well. But that was that was kind of my take on it.

And the only thing I'd reiterate I mean yeah it's been a pretty neat case piece of kit but again that those two were points is something I'm going to keep a pretty close eye on. You know the where point up top where that stop is and the where point down below on the rope wrench itself. Just a little concerned about that. It makes me retire a rope wrench prematurely you know that that would definitely be a deal breaker for me anyway. Not necessarily. Not necessarily something that would like completely disqualify it for anybody else. But for me, you know, if I'm wearing through rope wrenches quickly, that might not be something that I'd be interested in. But yeah, so far still impressed with it. You know, 10 is really nicely it works really nicely did some limb walks and some some traversals and stuff with it. It's it's a pretty good piece of gear.

Alright, well, we'll check in again soon. Again. Thanks, TreeStuff. This has been fun. It's cool to test out a new piece of gear. Yeah, yeah. learn the ins and outs of it. Sure. Well, we find out so we'll see you soon.

Everybody This is the tree thinking podcast. We're here for our final installment on the fusion tether video. My name is Jamie slitting heart.

Andrew Myron Corey shields.

We've really picked apart this thing over the last couple videos, I think video two. If you're looking into buying this thing, maybe maybe go check that out. It's a pretty good review. So today we're just going to have fun with it. We're at this awesome coastal Redwood. And we've set up kind of a work climb, what we're going to do is set up our tethers get ready for ascent, doing a set, we have a couple stations in the tree, and then we'll descend out. So you guys ready to

do it? gonna be fun.

All right, that was a lot of fun. I guess we'll just do kind of our final thoughts and wrap up this little project, our roundtable review of the knotch fusion tether. Andrew, you want to start it off?

Sure. It's been a lot of fun climbing with it. To be honest, when I first got it, I was you know, it's kind of like Oh, sweet, we'll check it out and see where it's going. You know what it's gonna you know, what, what, how is it gonna change the game. I enjoyed the pulley. I know you know, there's been mixed review on that but I like having the integral pulley. I like having the spring on here. And this extra points been pretty key for when I'm redirecting to different parts of the tree I've used it I didn't think I'd use it but I've used it a couple times now. See I was I was climbing with the rope wrench pro quite a bit before we got these things Road Runner or sorry Road Runner pro and so as ever since I started climbing with this I've been haven't used it once because I really wanted to run it through its paces I'll probably go back to climbing to the rope runner pro cuz that's just such a key I like how that goes between single rope and double rope and whatnot. But on trees where I know I'm just going up and coming down on single rope. I'll probably use this again and keep using the fusion I really liked it. Long time ago I made some fusions are like me and my brother some people at the company I was working with made some aluminum ones and I tried it a couple times and it just seemed like is bulky and the way I it was a long time ago so I can't remember if it was the angle or what I didn't like about it but it never stuck. And the way this one's designed, it's called probably use it anytime I'm using the rope wrench. That being said, you know, it is what it is, it's a fusion, it's kind of unfair to compare it to the rope runner pro because that's a complete climbing system. This is just a tether, right?

Yeah,

thank you so much. TreeStuff I've had a lot of fun trying these out climbing around on these trees and talking about it.

For me, there's no denying that like a stiff tethers is beneficial. You know, there's there's been people make up for a long time. Even you guys were making them back a while ago. The attachments awesome. We just talked about that every time the nice spring, it's super smooth on a set. But my my downside to this thing is the attached Foley I, I like my hitch primer, only so much because I could say like a small mid sized conifer removal, I can move in rope up and then slap my rope wrench on for a for this firework, or, you know, whatever. And I found that in a few trees, I would try to climb with this and I'm like, I kind of want to change over and it just didn't work out too well, for me, it'd be sweet. If they made just a tether. I think that would be awesome without the attach pole. That's kind of my thing. I'm a big fan of the hitch climber and being able to switch back and forth. But other than that this thing is sweet. Like, really smooth, engages nice. The handles cool. The attachment points are great. I just like the versatility of the hitch binder.

I like it. It's I like the how stiff it is. And I personally enjoy the pulley being integrated. Because that's all right there. Kind of like all the same stuff that I have been saying, you know, it's definitely more compatible with oval shaped carabiners, and, and it takes a little bit more dialing in the Prusik. Then, you know, like a full climbing system, you know, I'm a rope runner girl myself. But if and when I do bust out the rope bridge, I would say that this fusion is probably going to be my preference from now on. Yeah, I like the spring. And yeah, I got mostly good stuff to say about it. So thank you so much. I'm swiping right.

All right. So I'll be I'll be up front I've kind of been upfront and these entire views. I was not a huge fan of this when I first saw it. In fact, I remember talking with Andrew, we saw him on Facebook post from Instagram post. And I was like that is the most useless thing I think I've ever seen in my life. But it's won me over I'm I thought I was gonna hate it. I

really did. You really tried,

I really tried to. I tried to find a reason to hate this thing. But I couldn't it is it is a well made well, well thought out piece of gear. It's not it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I like the like the rigid portion of it. The attached pulley. While it does, I do have a few gripes about it. I do like the hitch climber setup with those multiple attachment points to hook in like a Knee Ascender or something like that. And even if they did like a half Becket on this in the future, so you can attach those Knee Ascender that would make this pretty bomb proof. I like that it's attached and that you're not going to be like fighting with it in the tree. But just the Knee Ascender the way that I run my Knee Ascender and the lack of an attachment point that's kind of a little bit of a worry, or a little bit of a not ideal spot. For me. The only really worrisome spot again, as I've mentioned before, was is this kind of where point up top here over the life of it, I don't I don't know how it's gonna respond. Again, it's still just kind of like a pink feeling thing at this point. We've been using it for two or three months now for using it for a while. So I'm gonna keep an eye on that definitely in the future, and we'll see kind of how that responds. But other than that, you know, this is my, I don't have a fancy rope runner, I

don't have a

zigzag or I'm not really a big mechanical friction device, kind of kind of guy. So this is going to be my go to break anytime I'm using any kind of single rope. Like Andrew was saying, if you're just using singer up the entire time, it's really hard to beat this for a tether system and I I'm a fan of it. I'm definitely a fan of it. I'm gonna be using it until they come up with something better where I get a fancy you can use but you know that might never happen. So

like if you know Cory that means a lot.

One over. I don't change

my mind often.

That's awesome. So I think all in all, we're all stoked on this thing. Thanks TreeStuff Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Go go and try this fusion. It is it is cool. There's something to be said about the stiff cutters. So yeah, thank you. We'll talk to you guys soon.