Self rescue practice from a tree

I have a big tree in my backyard, the lowest branch is about 30 feet up and looks super solid. I'm looking to practice self rescue skills, test TRS setups, etc. Any best practices for setting this up? My initial thought is below:

1) Throw a static line over the branch so that both ends come down to the ground

2) Ascend both strands and build an anchor around the branch

3) Pass a tag line through the masterpoint and back down to the ground, then tie it into a loop to act like a flagpole halyard

4) Rappel on both static line strands, pull the static rope, and leave the anchor/halyard setup for later use.

Edit- I don't love the idea of an anchor/masterpoint that I cannot inspect before use. Rodent damage, general abrasion over time, etc. Thoughts on how to address this? 

There's a big cross over with arborists in this case so they would know best. That being said I used to do this kind of thing and roughly I followed this guy's steps. It allows you to pull your anchor once you're back on the ground. Regarding tree health, you don't really know unless you know what you're looking for, so hope it's a good tree?
https://www.instructables.com/How-to-get-a-rope-into-a-tree-without-climbing-it/

Jake woo wrote:

There's a big cross over with arborists in this case so they would know best. That being said I used to do this kind of thing and roughly I followed this guy's steps. It allows you to pull your anchor once you're back on the ground. Regarding tree health, you don't really know unless you know what you're looking for, so hope it's a good tree?
https://www.instructables.com/How-to-get-a-rope-into-a-tree-without-climbing-it/

Thanks, pretty much exactly what I was looking for. And good point about the health of the tree.

Seeing that cambium saver makes me wonder- why is this not the standard for rappel anchors where bolts/chains are not available?

It usually is. Meaning usually there is a slung tree, so the sling doesn't rub on the tree when you pull the rap rope. It's generally poor practice to simply run the rope around the tree and then pull it. Regarding the retrievable anchor, the canyoneering community has a lot of this stuff. Some of it could be adopted to the climbing community for sure. At the same time, at least what I did with the tree anchor, I don't want a large bulk of metal and faff coming down when I pull my rap ropes because it will either get stuck, or hit someone or knock something loose. So it's not so plain and simple.

Woah that trick to invert the cambium saver sling over the branch with the throw line is quite neat. TIL!

Canyoneers would refer to the "cambium saver" as a "retrievable anchor", which you could also google if you want to do more research on similar techniques. Though of course they get to start at the top and are only concerned with getting everything down so don't have to be quite as tricky.

I taught my newbie flatmate how to prusik on a tree in the back yard, and he went on to become a guide, so you've picked a perfectly fine place to start.

How do you plan to ascend BOTH strands?  There's a potential problem that you might not anticipate...

Yea I'm with Gunkiemike on that one.  I have done this to practice top rope solo setups, but instead of ascending two strands, I put a carabiner on an alpine butterfly on one strand, clipped it to the other strand, then pulled it tight.  Then ascend the single strand to go up and put an anchor up if you want to.  

This can be a good easy way to practice TRS setups IF you know what you are doing.  Switching your system over from ascending to descending can be tricky when hanging in free space.  So make sure you have all the tools you need and know how to use them before you get stuck in a tree haha.

Rob Deanes wrote:

This can be a good easy way to practice TRS setups IF you know what you are doing.  Switching your system over from ascending to descending can be tricky when hanging in free space.  So make sure you have all the tools you need and know how to use them before you get stuck in a tree haha.

When I was practicing ascending a rope in a tree this happened to me. Kinda forget what happened or if I just didn’t know what I was doing but I sat in my harness in space for about 20 minutes trying to figure out my next steps.

Pretty ingenious rig.  And I liked the author’s sense of humor.

My thing about anchors has always been close, 100% inspection before relying on it. So I seriously liked the idea of bringing binoculars.

This could replace my go to of using a tag line to pull the middle of the rope up, over the branch, and back down to thread the rope tails through for a girth hitch around the branch - probably causes more wear and tear on the branch. Just need to secure the closely inter-functional equipment of this rig.

What do people like for a throw cord? We use a 5 mm accessory cord for bear hangs when backpacking.  I like how it throws with a weight on the end.

Rather than ascending on two strands, another option would be to build a ground anchor and attach one strand to it. The way I've done this is build a doubly redundant anchor at the base of the tree's own trunk or at a neighboring tree. I used a big stainless steel eye bolt in the trunk, backed up with a Prusik around the trunk.

Yeah, leaving a toprope anchor up that you can't inspect is kind of a concern. What I've done is to make a triply redundant anchor on the trunk itself (not a branch), and make it so that even if every nylon component rots away in the sun, the anchor will still have metal parts that will hold. I left a tag line up.

One half rope with a figure eight tied on a bight at the end and a large locker thrown over the branch (the branch is about 30' up, but I can climb the first 10' or so and throw the rope over the branch). My tree is a very big and healthy eucalyptus, and the branch I use to anchor has another branch that prevents the rope from moving or sliding anywhere. Once I get the rope over I feed slack through while still standing in the tree until I can grab the biner, then clip it in and pull the rope until it's tight. then I weight the bottom of the rope, put in my grigri/ascenders/aiders and start jugging (pulling slack every 7' or so). Once I get to the top, I pull my slack tight and sit on my grigri then remove the ascenders and lower down to my crash pad. Repeat about 50x and you have a pretty good workout!  

I ended up using a method similar to the one linked above. I used some looped webbing as an improvised cambium saver, with overhand knots close to each end to make small keepers loops, and then put lockers in the keeper loops. To avoid the need for a big ring and small ring for recovery, I just tied an extra tag line to one side before I hoisted it. Unfortunately did not take any pictures, but it worked great. Used a Reepschnur setup for practicing TRS on a single line, just put a ladder against the tree to "ascend". Took the reepschnur out and practiced rappel to ascend transition on two lines with an ATC and sling/prusik.

Collin H wrote:

I practice jugging and descending in my tree at home, and here's how I do it:

One half rope with a figure eight tied on a bight at the end and a large locker thrown over the branch (the branch is about 30' up, but I can climb the first 10' or so and throw the rope over the branch). My tree is a very big and healthy eucalyptus, and the branch I use to anchor has another branch that prevents the rope from moving or sliding anywhere. Once I get the rope over I feed slack through while still standing in the tree until I can grab the biner, then clip it in and pull the rope until it's tight. then I weight the bottom of the rope, put in my grigri/ascenders/aiders and start jugging (pulling slack every 7' or so). Once I get to the top, I pull my slack tight and sit on my grigri then remove the ascenders and lower down to my crash pad. Repeat about 50x and you have a pretty good workout!  

Perhaps add an extra cord, paracord or tag line etc. to the carabiner for easier retreaval, just in case. 

I realize this may be less important with a tree like Eucalyptus, but for other types of trees, with less than smooth bark and more branches to deal with, it may be needed.

If one isn't able to acsend 10' or whatever to throw over the knot and carabiner, get an arborist throw bag, they're cheap enough (only ~$25 on Amazon, including throw line; which is good enough if you're not planning on using it professionally, but plan on using more than just one or twice; I'm sure you could just DIY something fairly easy, though; like a rock on a string lol.)