Posted on by Todd Smith

DAY 8


DAY 8
04.12.07
TREE 9

This has been my scariest climb. And I was only up about 10 feet or so. But it was climbing the hanging vines that made it so scary. You never know how well they are attached. I always worry that they will snap and I’ll fall. Once up the vine I had to reach to another vine hugging the trunk. Then I stepped onto a dead, hollow branch, that again, made me nervous. I was so preoccupied with visions of falling that I forgot to tie my orange ribbon on the tree. It seems the scariest and most challenging are most often remembered. Damn cold today.

04-12-08: By today’s standards this tree would not be scary at all.  The way I’ve been pushing myself lately to try new kinds of movement in the trees has caused me to reevaluate what I consider challenging or scary.  I had gotten to the point where I wasn’t getting bruised or cut while climbing.  All last spring and summer my legs were like one big scabby bruise.  Now, in this last week, my legs are starting to look like that again.  I used to say last year after people would comment on my marked up legs, “If you haven’t bled today, you haven’t really lived.”

And here is another video from yesterday.  It’s double time but it’s still slow.  I should have put it on 5x time lapse.  Oh well, enjoy. TS


4 Replies to “DAY 8”

  3. After the crotch

    How do you decide which way to continue or not when the tree splits?

  4. Re: After the crotch

    Which ever side looks like I can get higher. As the year went on my ability to find a path through the branches from the ground increased, so often I had my route planned out already. Other times if I climb one side thinking it will take me higher but I get stuck or I was mistaken, I will climb back down to the split and take the other side. I always feel that the more branches I encounter, the more I move around in a tree, the more rewarding the experience. If I can climb down a different way than I came up, that is preferred.

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