Hello from Columbus, OH

Hello All!

I have nearly completed the online course and bought the DVD as well. I decided to buy my gear yesterday from Wes Spur, so I am looking forward to trying out what I have learned on my new equipment when that arrives next week.

I bought the Jeff Jepson books when I bought the course and found those pretty useful as well. I have been practicing knots on some rope I already had and some non-load-bearing carabiners, which I have found extremely helpful. That has given me a bit of confidence in my ability to tie decent knots.

I have several beautiful silver maple trees that I will be practicing in before I go out in the "wild" and see what is around.

I am looking forward to hanging out (pun intended) with all of you.

I also wanted to mention that I substituted the Tengu harness for the Petzl Sequoia in the TCI recreational kit. I like the idea of a working style harness better than the recreational, as I intend on some day expanding into doing more in the trees than just hanging out.

Welcome Badamik! I wish you luck on learning the ropes! I'm located in Muskingum County so we're pretty close. You might want to check out youtube and vimeo videos as a source of information and knowledge. As a self taught climber I used about every source I could access to learn skills and techniques. Having a mentor would certainly speed up the learning process. Consider purchasing the book On Rope, which contains a wealth of information.

Here are some of my videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIN32RA3gPB6SqGiYG7pFbA/videos

Richard's Videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/richardmum10/videos

Climbing Arborist's Videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ClimbingArborist1/videos

TreeFool's Videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfadgAqe8HZssQBrY_mq3DQ/videos

Moss's Videos
https://vimeo.com/natureclimber

I agree. I substituted the Singing Rock Arbor 3D harness, which costs only slightly more than the Tengu. I haven't climbed in either yet, so I can't tell you if it was a good idea or not.