№ 8: A Climbing Report
Let’s try something new: Now that I am back out in the trees, I can finally use these letters to recount to you some of my actual tree-climbing experiences. So this month, let me tell you about an exhausting, but quite satisfying, day in the branches that I had a little over a week ago.
Johnson Park
12:00pm: Tree 151 (Sugar maple, Acer saccharum)
After gearing up (as described in my letter last month), I biked over to Johnson Park, which is just a couple of minutes away from my home, and contains several trees that I’ve explored before. I started with Tree #151 (I think I’ve mentioned before that I do not name trees, but I do catalog all the trees I’ve climbed, and distinguish them with numbers).1
I’ve been in this tree a few other times before. It’s a good tree to warm up with as I start the day, because it’s easy to climb, but not very small, giving me an extended chance to get my muscles moving. It’s also (1) near my home; and (2) in a park that is not usually very busy, so that I can climb without attracting attention. Because of all these factors, it’s starting to become a favorite. The bottom has a variety of low branches that make it simple for a person of my stature (5′5″, 165cm) to access, which, again, is a nice way to ease into the day.
Being inside is like being encased in a bubble of green leaves. That’s not the case for every tree that I climb. Sometimes they have might have an entire side with few leaves, where you can see the outside world clearly. And some have plenty of leaves, but all the branches are clustered tightly together and everything closes in around you. This tree, though, spreads wide and is green all around. It feels roomy inside, while still cutting me off from the outside world. That is another reason I have come back to it a few times.
Also, I bought a combination tripod/selfie stick for my phone, for the purpose of visually documenting and sharing some of my climbing.
I went to the near the top of this tree, a height of 47 feet (14.3m), and then it was time to move on to more challenging climbs.
12:30pm: Tree 157 (Norway maple, Acer platanoides)
This one’s at the corner end of the park, by a road and a clock shop. I’ve been in this one a few other times before, but not because it’s an easy warm-up.
While most trees are like #151, and require that I grab a branch and pull myself up, this one has a more challenging entry. There are no low branches, and the trunk quickly splits into three wide stems that are far too large to grab hold of.
Instead of a simple pull-up, I have to brace myself between two trunks and slowly work my way up until I can reach a graspable branch.
I climbed this tree twice in a row: once going up the stem in the center of the photo (to a height of about 37ft / 11.3m), and once going up the stem on the left (33ft / 10.1m).
Unfortunately, the stem on the right is one that I can’t manage. Last year I tried for about half an hour to find a way up, to no avail. The first useful branch is pretty high up, and it’s hard to find a way to maneuver myself up there because the stems get farther and farther apart as you ascend. I may try again at some point, but there are plenty of other trees to climb, so I don’t worry too much about missing out.
Burrows Park
I next moved on to what I call “prospecting”: looking for new trees to climb. I started living in my current neighborhood a bit over one year ago, so I am still in the process of discovering the trees in the area.
Burrows Park is next door to, and much larger than, Johnson Park, and it has many more trees. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that almost none of them could be climbed. They lacked the low branches that I need to get started. This is pretty typical; I can only climb a small fraction of the trees that I see. However, after a quick lunch break, I finally found a single exception.
1:50pm: Tree 160 (Littleleaf linden, Tilia cordata)
Like pretty much all the other trees in Burrows Park, this one has no low branches. But, the trunk does split into three stems fairly low to the ground, and something like that can also be enough to allow me to get started (just as with #157, above).
But, it was no easy task. Getting started involves feeling around for any small little nub of wood that I could reach my fingers around, and then pulling my body weight up mostly by my fingertips. Meanwhile, my feet try to find whatever bit of friction they can on the bark, and alternate between slipping and providing a little support. It took several tries and a lot of scrapes before I made it in. This is one of the few instances in which tree climbing looks a lot like rock climbing. I felt triumphant at finally reaching the top of the trunk, a mere five or six feet (~2 meters) off the ground.
I don’t have any better images of it, but perhaps you can discern from the photo of the whole tree, above, that there are not a lot of branches early on. Once again, I had to brace myself between stems and slowly work my way up. I worked at it for about ten minutes, and nearly gave up, but I finally found a way to grab my first branch, probably close to fifteen feet up. Meanwhile, while I was fumbling around, a group of people appeared and began to set up mats and practice martial arts in the shade of my tree. I was self-conscious at the idea of being observed on my way up (especially when things weren’t going well), but they eventually went on with what they were doing, and disappeared from my view as I worked my way into the canopy. Given that they were around, though, I didn’t have a chance to take a closer photo showing the challenges of my initial route in.
I did, though, enjoy some nice views from about 54 ft (16.5m) in the air. This was a pleasant surprise; when I looked at the tree from the ground, I didn’t think that it was that tall.
Though I was initially disappointed at Burrows Park, this challenging tree has given me a good reason to return. I descended about half an hour after I began, fairly scraped up (tree bark can be unkind if you have to grab onto it), and with weary muscles. Between scrambling up the trunk and then bracing myself up the stems until I could reach a branch, I expended a lot of my strength.2
Despite being a bit worn out, I did climb a couple more trees. However, this letter is nearing its maximum length (Substack is warning me), and in truth, these last two climbs were the least interesting of the day: a couple of short silver maples at yet another nearby park. They were were fastigiate (meaning their branches tend to be near-vertical), so they were kind of tight and uncomfortable. I probably won’t climb them again.
Thanks for following along on this journey! I ascended a total of 243 feet (74m) of climbing that day, over about four hours. It was a satisfying day, and I may document more climbs like this in future letters.
May Summary: I made a total of 18 climbs, on 14 different trees, with a total climb height of about 620 feet (189m).
This will be the subject of a future letter. But for now I’m going to focus on telling you about the trees I climb, and spare you any discussion of my spreadsheets until the next offseason.
It’s early in the season, so I have hopes of getting stronger as time goes on.
Fun tale! Really nice coming along for the morning!