Registered: Oct 2001
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Posts: 18155

Pole Climbing

My Dad, as you know, was a lineman—a climber of utility poles or as he frequently said
a “stump-humper”. He was pretty good at it too. From the time he was 19 until he was about 40 his job revolved around climbing poles. I asked him once to teach me how to climb poles. I was in my very early teens. He remarked that if he ever caught me with a pair of hooks strapped on my legs he would brain me, but he did teach me a bit about the science of pole climbing. There are some aspects of pole climbing that you may never have thought about. Such as:

High Side: Utility poles used to be trees and few of them are perfectly straight. It is very important when you climb a pole to climb up it on the convex or “high side” so that you won’t be hanging from the pole on the concave side and putting a great strain on your arms as you go up it. Even a curvature or slant of 3 or 4 inches makes a major difference in the strain of climbing.

Gaff Length: The gaff on the inside instep of the climbing hooks is about 1 ½ inches long when new. One of the biggest mistakes that a new climber makes is to sink the gaff too far into the pole. A gaff depth of only a quarter of an inch will easily support the weight of a 200-pound lineman---there weren’t many linemen then who weighed over two hundred pounds. At least they didn’t for very long. If the gaff is too deep it puts a hard strain on the lineman’s ankle each time that he breaks it out of the pole to take another climbing step. Old hands usually ground off their gaffs to about ¾ inch and purposely blunted them so they would not sink too deep into the wood of the pole. This saved a lot of strain on the ankles.

Body Angle: There is a strong tendency with new climbers to climb with their body too erect and too near the pole. Actually with me there was an urge to hug the pole. This is a good way to get a face full of creosoted Douglas fir. The body should be a graceful curve away from the pole with the butt being the point furthest away and the shoulders at arms length from the pole. The hands should be at each side of the pole not behind it and should just act as a guide. As an old lineman once told me, “You treat a pole just like a lady at a fancy dress ball. You handle her gently and stay at arm’s length away from her”.

Dangers: The first six feet or so above ground of any pole are usually a danger from nails driven in by politicians or some citizen advertising a garage sale. If a gaff should hit a nail it might cause a fall or worse from that height cause a “burn” where the lineman’s face is drawn into the pole and laced with splinters. Fence posts, parked farm implements or cars or constructed signs at the bottom of a pole are all worries to a lineman because they could cause serious injury if the lineman fell that flat ground would be less likely to cause.

Where It Hurts : Your legs will hurt all over. Ankles, knees, calves and hips are severely strained in new linemen. A lineman strapped off with a safety belt may spend an hour or more at the top of a pole with very little position change. This is very painful on the small of your back.

Height: I have seen Dad climb many 70-foot poles and I have heard him talk about climbing a 90-foot pole (80 to 82 feet above ground). The only real problem with such tall poles is that they usually sway quite a bit until they are thoroughly anchored and if the wind is high. Tends to make some people dizzy to be 80 feet above ground standing on a quarter inch of steel and swaying in a three-foot arc.

Safety Belts: Most all linemen wear safety belts but unless a lineman is going to do a lengthy job topside few will use them. When they get to their work height most experienced linemen will kick their right gaff out of the pole and wrap their right foot around the pole to free up both hands to do their work. Insurance inspectors usually frown upon this procedure but I have never seen a lineman hurt from it.

Settin’ Hooks: It is very important to see a lineman “set” a new pair of hooks or one he has changed the gaff length on. Probably this is pure bravado but the linemen all used to swear that a new pair or altered set of hooks had to be “set”. They would pick a tall pole and climb to the very top and then kick both gaffs out of the pole so that they were falling with only their fingertips touching the pole. Then as they began to near the ground they would move their hooks into the pole and by the varying angle of their ankles cause the gaffs to take an increasing bite until the gaffs stopped their fall a foot or two above the ground. The lineman would then grunt and say “There! I guess that set the sons-a-bitches”.

Now you know the science of pole climbing. All you need to do is practice a little bit and get the art of it down pat and you too can be a lineman.


Gran's on bottom of this group, I think:

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: California
Posts: 4252

I have watched my Dad climbing when I was a kid.
He used to repair radios for the Forrest Service and had stories about people whom had their spikes cut out and looked like a backwards hedge hog.
I think I would rather cut the pole down, fix the thingy and dig a new hole. Heh.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Lat: 43° 42' 0 N, Long: 79° 34' 0 W
Posts: 2820

More proof that all men of the asylum are gay... Pole climbing... Bah!
*cry*

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
Posts: 3692

I'd prefer to check the poles out from groundline, thanks.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Delaware
Posts: 5710

quote:

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Originally posted by Mugtoe
Pole Climbing

Safety Belts: Most all linemen wear safety belts but unless a lineman is going to do a lengthy job topside few will use them. When they get to their work height most experienced linemen will kick their right gaff out of the pole and wrap their right foot around the pole to free up both hands to do their work. Insurance inspectors usually frown upon this procedure but I have never seen a lineman hurt from it.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3876

Yeah, you seldom see a man up on a pole with hooks on anymore.
Most of them are in a cherry picker or on a ladder even.

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oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 2947

I have a pair of old Ma Bell climbing jacks. I moved into a house where this old lineman had lived and found them in the attic. I also found his hard safari hat but left it behind. The jacks are pretty cool but are missing the leather straps.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beyond Mason-Dixon Line
Posts: 16339

Interesting read, oxsan. Many thanks.

I am, by nature, fearful of heights. They tend to put a rock-solid knot in my sphincter, big-time. I did, however, spend one summer pourin' mud on an Army Corp dam. Much of the time, we were 80-100 feet above solid concrete with nothin' but rickety ol', slapped-together, temporary catwalks to move about on.

I got used to it, though. Guess I wuz even more 'fraid o' bein' broke than I wuz o' heights.

Amen.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3876

Fear of destitution is a miracle cure for many illnesses.

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