Once the rope is set up, the climbing gear needed is significantly less than that of typcial ascending/descending ropes. All you need is a harness, foot ascender http://www.rocknrescue.com/acatalog/Petzl-Pantin-Foot-Ascender.html, mini pulley and a presick loop.
What Scott did when he came out was to get the rope in the spot that would best support our weight, place the semi-permanent nylon webbing (or choker) that will hold the guide line AND the climbing line. Now, all I have to do when I want to climb, is to go out back, tie on the climbing line and pull it through the nylon choker and start climbing.
This is a great discipline and technique to use in AR since you can have mulitple stations set up that will avoid choke points in the race.
The potential is unlimited in that a control point could be placed at a point in a tree where the climber would have to "go out on limb" to mark their passport...and this isn't as easy as it sounds. Or, climb one tree, swing to another to access the control, then back to the first tree to descend. There are many, many options here.
Below are some photos of the set up.
This is a photo of Scott after he threw the line to the top of the tree. I obviously snapped the picture late.
Here, Scott is putting the final touches on the climbing set up.
Here is Riverside Outfitters shop; they are ready to help you climb trees, raft the James or even rent you some tubes do relax with some tubing on the James. You can check out their website at
http://www.riversideoutfitters.net/
OR - you can check out their shop located at
Riverside Outfitters
6836 Old Westham Rd.
Richmond, VA 23225
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