DAY 190
10.11.07
TREE 112
The weather is finally turning cool. It’s nice to go outside in a hoodie and pants to go find a tree. And really nice to roam freely to choose a tree. I am becoming a little more picky in my selection because I want good challenges. High heights, and good views. I went to Tom Sawyer Park around sunset this evening. This is quite a young park compared to other big parks in Louisville. All the trees are younger and shorter. I walked around and saw decent possibilities but I was looking for more. These trees looked easy, straight up with many branches. So I walked looking up for tall trees in the distance. I tried climbing one in a field and succeeded but it wasn’t a good one. I didn’t get too high and wanted more so I climbed back down and saw a larger tree in the distance by the edge of the park. As I walked closer I realized it was over the boundary fence and across the street. I was afraid it might be in someone’s front yard, but luckily it wasn’t. It is just off the road. It’s an older tree with many dying limbs. The branches gradually grow outwards from each other just off the ground. I stepped up in between two, then up between two more before I could reach smaller limbs to continue upwards. I had to be pretty careful because these smaller branches were quite brittle and bent easily under my weight. I tried to distribute my weight evenly across my holds.
I climbed up weaving through the branches. At my high-point I had a great view of the park, the BMX track and the small strip of orange sunset underneath large grey clouds.
I took pictures then climbed down. A few steps down I realized I had forgotten to tie my ribbon but I didn’t climb back up this time. I just tied it lower. I’m still not used to doing that yet.
The rest of the way down was pretty easy. A moderate challenge with good, comfortable climbing weather.
10-11-08: So after completing yesterday’s entry about the beech tree I really wanted to go back and slide down the branch. (Don’t know what I am talking about? Read DAY 189: http://dailyclimb.livejournal.com/50312.html ) I got on my bike and went right to Cherokee Park and found my tree. I was a little nervous that some of the branches might be on the ground. But this is a strong beech and looked to be all intact. I went up onto the large branch and slid down. Besides a large piece of skin that got gouged from my pinky finger, it was awesome. I set up my camera and made a video. Just you know… it is double speed.
Then after I climbed back down I started to look for a new tree to climb. I spotted this massive maple which I remember seeing before but thought it was impossible.
Well yesterday I was determined. I saw a drooping limb and wasn’t sure if it would hold but thought I would document the climb whether it held or not.
I set up the camera on the ground pointing up and went to climbing. This time I set the camera at 5x speed. I went over to the drooping limb and quickly tested my weight on it. It worked so I went up as fast as I could… like yesterday’s climb. I reached the trunk and got to my feet and began to climb up the limbs. It was a great tree in the top with a lot of good sturdy branches.
I reached the top and looked around. I couldn’t see much out of the leaves but a nearby beech tree’s long branch was just feet from my reach. I considered trying to transfer to the other tree, but that would have been extremely dangerous and wouldn’t have been caught on my video. So I climbed back down in a hurry and shot back down the drooping limb to the ground. It was an awesome climb.