Abandon Tree Straps?

[default]

yeah i have to take issue with this. i know hes a good stove guy and new to hammocks, but i take issue with this. sure he may be a skinny lil guy, but someone like me that can weigh a bit more will do this and dang near cut the tree down.

heres some simple logic: if you had someone choking you with something, would you rather it be a nice wide strap that evenly distributes the force (there by lessening the impact)

OR

Would you rather have a nice thin piano wire?

which do you think will do less damage with someone putting the same force on it? same goes for trees. AND its the same theory. we hang on them, and in essence choke the trees. its not just about VISUAL impact, but i dont want to come back years later to my favorite tree and see a deep grove or it stunted because i liked to hang from it.

[flannery]

Though it may be overkill I even use 1 inch webbing for my tarp in addition to the WBBB. Quick, easy, no knots or knotbones or anything else. Strap it up and let it hang! I used the webbing kit from Arrowhead. Great stuff!!

[L.D. Cakes]

It's nice to see so many who care about the welfare of trees...and the welfare of our hammock privileges.

[Riverpirate]

When I first came to HF and started researching and reading, I must say I got a laugh from some of the talk about tree damage. Especially coming from the SE where we regularly hut deer from portable climbing stands that dig into and tear bark off trees. In all my years of hunting deer from portable stands and even some places where I have used the same tree for years, I have yet to see one damaged enough to die. Even on national forests we are allowed to use portable climbing stands. In the old days before portable climbers we built wooden stands in the trees. Even all those nails never killed a tree. The real problem with that was the loggers tore up their saws when they hit a nail while cutting down the trees.

All that being said I use straps anyway. Because the trees can damage my suspension ropes and straps are cheaper and easier to replace than suspensions. I can also see a long term damage is a true campground if there was enough hanging over years but our hammocks are not that popular yet.

[pb&j]

Y'all said it all. Probably not every tree would be hurt, but until someone does a bunch of studies over a long period of time with all different kinds of trees, tree diameters, and in areas of varying hang traffic and then makes us a fancy spreadsheet, how do we make the call in the meantime?

As Ramblinrev said, damage does not have to be direct, and the results of damage may not have a visible effect until well after the hanger is gone from the site.

Guessing whether you are causing damage is not good enough--considering permission to hang in many or most of the places all of us hang is at stake.

Like the old saying goes--an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Gra_factor]

I have seen trees with 1 inch cable wrapped around them and they grow over it, I have seen lots of trees with barbed wire in them and fencing and they grow threw it, nails, spikes, you name it, lots of saw mills saw thru steel and ruin lots of blades,,Trees are pretty resilient. I think for the most however, to appease all the enviromentals, the national parks people, the state parks people, and to promote hammock hanging as a safe and enviromental friendly way of backpacking and to take away any doubt whatso ever,,,we are better off to use a tree strap. Its a small weight penality that we should have to pay to promote our sport of hanging. Just my 2 cents.

I'm no arborist, but I would bet that tying up and removing different cords at different times by different people on the same tree trunk would be qualitatively different than wrapping a cable around a tree trunk and leaving it there for years. That assumes of course that the tree in question was being used regularly for hammock camping, which I would imagine some are.

In Australia the early settlers used to "ring bark" trees as an low labor way to kill them, to clear the land for agriculture. They would cut into the tree all the way around and strip off a thin layer of bark and that was all that was needed to kill the tree. That's because the actual living part of the tree is on the outside under the bark, the rest is like a skeleton.

Now obviously tying an amsteel cord around the tree is not the same as cutting off the bark, but it must move a little in that direction.

[Gra_factor]

Has anyone though of using their amsteel with a couple of strips of leftover CCF pad?

[aboyd]

I wondered if this subject would get discussed here. After watching Tinny's videos, I was a little concerned it would lead people to abandon the use of tree straps. I am a much heavier hanger than Tinny, 300 lbs at present, so tree straps are the only environmental choice for me. I agree that image is important as well. I want to make sure that if I ever get approached by a ranger concerned about me damaging the tree, that I can show that I have done my due-diligence in regards to protecting that tree. All be it small, I have seen signs on tree bark from something as simple as my paracord clothes line I setup when car camping, so I have to say that if I hung in a tree using amsteel only, I am sure I would "leave my mark" on the environment. Tree straps for me!!!

[richtorfla]

Well here is my 2cents. Someone will take Tinny's wisdom, sans the straps, whoopies slide down tree and cut a notch in tree to keep rope from sliding. Granted at 30 degrees, it might not slip, but I have seen just rope slip.I saw the guy starting to cut the v, went over to explain what damage it does to a tree ( he still cut the v's.. ignorance is bliss) I remember one of our members using amsteel and putting sticks at the contact points so te treebark wasn't damaged. Now that is a workable solution if you want to go strapless. I like and will continue to use straps cause thats the kind of guy I am.

[samiam2714]

Every time I go wheeling I see the result of people not using tree straps with their winches. That same results will happen with hammocks. The trees will deform because you just destroyed the vital material that resides between the bark and body of the tree (phloem). The parks will bar their doors to the hammock community and tree huggers everywhere will hate us. I say be kind!! save a tree use the straps.