It was a scraggly Douglas Fir tree over 30 cm in diameter at breast height. I started by installing my throw line up high into the tree. Then, I tied my climbing rope onto the throw line and began pulling the throw line to get my climbing line up into the tree. Next, I secured the end of the climbing line around the trunk of the tree after removing the throw line from it. Once I tested the positioning of the ropes strength with my body weight, I attached my foot ascender (pantene) then my knee ascender (haus) and began climbing the rope like it was a staircase. I had to climb approximately 20 feet to reach the height of a small white cat named Luna. She meowed softly as she slowly walked across the soft branches from the other side of the tree toward me.
It was probably the smoothest cat rescue I have done. When I reached the height of the cat and saw that she was coming towards me, I just had to disconnect my two ascenders from the rope so that I could repel as soon as Luna walked right over to me. There was no need to place the cat into my carrier. I just took hold of her and brought her close to me and placed her on my lap. I held her there with one hand and repelled back to the ground with my other hand. Luna’s owner was right there and I was able to pass her over and she was put inside the home.
This Cat rescue differed from the many other cat rescues I have done because I did not have my cat carrier with me. It really helped that Luna was very calm and didn’t fight me and try to get away once I had control over her.
Luna had been in the tree since yesterday morning. I was there at 8 am this morning and packed up and out of there by quarter to 9 am. One throw is all it took to get my rope into a safe and secure position in the tree. Smooth as silk I would say.