Month: August 2008

DAY 138
08.20.07
TREE 55

What an amazing climb! And a vast improvement on my first attempt. This morning I popped out of bed at 8 AM ready to go. I did a little house work then Ron Cooper from the Courier-Journal showed up a little past 9 to interview me for a feature article in the Indiana Weekly magazine. We had a nice talk and I showed him my studio. Then later I dropped off my CD of images I wanted printed for the show. After that big relief off my mind I drove over to the Garner’s to climb. I notified Gordon of my presence then headed to the tree. I did one rotation around the trunk to look for a possible first step better than the one I had done originally. But I found none. I jumped to that small first limb, curled up my legs and pressed the insides of my feet against the trunk for stability. I rotated slightly around to the left as I continued to climb higher with my arms. Once to larger branches I could stand comfotably and look for my next move. I quickly climbed past the watery crevises with slugs and worms to my blue ribboned limb. I pulled it off and pocketed it, then laughed that I didn’t climb higher before. It seemed so easy to me this time. A foot there, a reach here… I was up in no time well past that previous high point. The limbs became thinner and bendier. When I placed my foot inbetween two limbs they would bend apart then squeeze back together and trap my foot. I would then have to manually bend them away from each other to free it. A key move when going ever higher as my arms began to tire. I kept climbing past any tough spots always finding a way through. Then I transferred to another main branch off the trunk to get higher still. This was quite fun but scary because the limbs bended so much under my weight. I hoisted myself up almost to the top and rested on one branch that leaned out over the ground far below. It was an amazing view of the little I could see besides other trees. And the wind really blew a couple times sending me back and forth quite a bit. I reveled in my accomplishment, enjoyed my view and rested my arms. Then I climbed down allowing gravity to do a lot more work this time. I dirtied my shirt but made it safely down once again. What a great climb, I really enjoyed this one.

This was the easy part towards the beginning of the climb

Then a little higher, and harder to tell with all the pretty leaves.

And the top of the tree, not the tree on the left of the image, but in the middle… It’s kinda hard to see.

Looking down from my high and awkward position.

A view over the treetops

What’s that through the leaves?

Ah, the Hunting Creek golf course and someones backyard.

8-20-08:  I’m not sure why but I did not write about my interaction with the Garners as I climbed this tree.  Gordon eventually came out to see my progress and was a little shocked at my height.  He then went and got Joyce to come look who did the typical mom reaction.  It took her a while to finally spot me through all the trees.  Mostly because she just wasn’t looking high enough.  People never think humans could get so high in a tree and so rarely look at the tops for people.  I think even if they did look up, they may miss me.  But Gordon was there to guide her eyes.  And when she finally did spot me, she was a bit horrified I believe.  I’d say it was one of my highest climbs and I was easily over 60 feet above ground.  I wanted to take picture of the Garners looking up at me but they looked so small and it was hard to get a good shot through the leaves.  So many leaves.  It was also one of the biggest improvements from a previous climb. 

I put off climbing again yesterday till really late.  I didn’t get out to look for a tree until 11 pm and I wasn’t even sure where I was going to go.  I wanted to stay downtown so the lightening would be good.  I biked around the extreme park looking for a tree where I might get a good glimpse of the interstate, the extreme park, or downtown.  Then, after crossing under the highway by Slugger Field I saw a little tree up on the hill right next to the interstate.  Not too big, but climbable.  I locked my bike on the chainlink fence that was meant to keep people away from the highway.  I jumped it and then trudged through the high brown grass towards the tree.  I was near the parking lot to the ball park and the lights were bright.  Some cars remained in the lot because of Brownings, the restaraunt/bar attached to the stadium.  They had also left the large, bright ball park lights on so I could have easily been seen.  In these cases I walk at normal speed and look as if I am supposed to be doing what I am doing.  Walking or running in a sneaky manner draws more attention, I think.  Luckily no one was around.  I got to the trunk and hid behind it as I scanned the area for people or cars.  It was clear so I shimmied up the trunk to the first branch.  This tree had quite a few dead branches, and the ones that were alive had damaged bark.  They held enough for me to keep climbing, however, and I eventually made it to the top.  When I got there I could see the leaves up close and the long, slender fruit if the catalpa tree.  They kind of look like really long green beans.  I believe Casey Hornung called these things the Indiana bananas.  So I was pretty excited to be climbing a type of tree I had yet to climb.   My first position in the tree was facing the highway where I took some pictures.

Looking north

Looking straight over the extreme park but unable to see anything but the bright lights

Looking South
Then I took a shot looking down.  Strangely, in this light, the grass looks like oatmeal

I took a few more once I switched limbs to get a view looking West.  I like the images looking down… they have a very fantastical look about them.


Then looking up at the all the leaves that seemed a little unhealthy with a yellowy color.

There was also a billboard nearby that I thought was advertising a strange product

Who sees a billboard and then gets the urge to buy a log cabin?

Anyway, I then took a bunch of pictures of the stadium and downtown. 



In this last picture, I thought it would be neat to have the Louisville Slugger Field sign with the downtown skyline but the bright light on the edge of the image makes it not as nice as I would have liked.  What do you think?

When I was finished shooting, I climbed down fast and made sure no one was around.  I was nervous of getting caught and being accused of sniping or something since I hold my camera like a gun.  That could be bad, right?  Anyway, I got down, and walked quickly back through the tall grass, hopped the fence and biked away as quickly as I could.  I took a round-a-bout way back to my apartment, didn’t see any cop cars so I figured I was fine.  I figured they’d go harassing the extreme parkers first anyway.  It’s easy to blame those teens.