crossing barbed wire fences

Use it Ryan, good luck!

It will be snowing when you go, be very careful. Castration could be painful!

That last post on page 3. Whew. 38 crossings.

I think Doug is onto something about using hiking poles to separate the strands. Use that and the foam. Why suspend the weight of all that human flesh over all those barbs by an 8 oz. contraption subject to failure from generalized design or improper utilization or maybe even a weak point on a post?

Goes against the BPL ethic. Frost king has 1″ thick walls.

The hook and line idea might work with carabiners.

A cord girth hitched around two strands and tied with a releasable knot at the four corners hold the middle open?

My next trip will require about 40 barbed wire fence crossings.

Has anyone heard if Ryan is out and about on his wire crossing trip? Is he ok?

If there aren’t any tussocks he’ll be fine :)

Update: I haven’t done this trip yet. I *have* revised my route. I’ve learned the art of reading aerial imagery more effectively (based on several day hikes in the area, and reconciling what I see on the ground to what I see via aerial images) to discover barbed wire fence lines more accurately and was able to mod the route so that now I’ve decreased my route from 38 fence crossings to less than a dozen crossings. Also, I was able to get a “fence map” from a GIS specialist at the USFS, which shows some fences that are no longer there and new fences that don’t show up on the map. Hence the need to really study aerial imagery. I hope to reduce my fence crossings to 6 or less. I’m pretty confident.

I think I’m ready to change my strategy from the 8-oz T-bar thingy (which works well, and allows me to safely cross 4- or 5-wire barbed wire fences at steel T-posts) to a cam-lock-and-cord setup that will allow me to throw my pack over the fence and cross thru a 24-ish-inch gap in the middle that shouldn’t wreck my Arc’teryx jacket too badly if I go slow and careful, but still allow me to cross a fence in less than a minute.

I’ll keep you posted. This has been such a fun problem.

Here’s a fence. Do you see it?

If the fence isn’t used anymore you can remove the wire that holds barbed wire strand to pole which makes it easier to cross

I do a hike on the Deschutes that has several fence crossings.  Rockfall has taken out some of the fence which hasn’t been repaired in years which makes it easier to cross.

Hmmm… I might take a nylon cord with me the next time to tie the fence together to pull it down which would make it easier

I have ripped my pants before but it was from brushing against the fence, not crossing it.

obviously not the purple line

maybe, sort of perpendicular to the purple line, intersecting at the pointer, there’s a faint line that’s sort of straight

maybe, sort of perpendicular to the purple line, intersecting at the pointer, there’s a faint line that’s sort of straight

That’s my guess.  It seems to make a 90° turn in the “southwest” corner of the picture after crossing the purple line.  There’s also the indication of a feature to the east-southeast of the marker, perpendicular to the purple line…but I’m only guessing.  I’m not good at reading photos like this one.