DAY 348
03.17.08
TREE 166
I was waiting for the clouds to clear and the sun to come out to climb. It never happened though. My mom was starting to make dinner and I didn’t want to wait till afterward because it would be dark by then. The first time I climbed the pine tree I planned on doing today it was incredibly rainy and dark, and I don’t think any of my pictures turned out. There were a few with flash but the conditions were just so wet up at the very top of this tree that nothing came out. At least today it’s dry outside. I told my mom I was going to climb really quick in the back yard.
It was overcast and grey but still plenty of light in the early evening sky. I walked past the pool and across the tennis court to the pine tree.
I stood in the decomposing pile of leaves and looked up to the first branches. I had forgot that I couldn’t reach them from the ground. So I wrapped my extremities around the thin trunk and shimmied up. A couple broken limb stubs were there to help get a few holds while I reached for the first low branch. Then I pulled myself up onto my feet and began to go up the levels. The first half was pretty monotonous. Then at the top half, one side of the tree had no limbs.
I continued up to the very thin top and pulled off my ribbon.
I looked around me and saw that the turkey vultures had already perched themselves high up in the nearby sycamores.
They are so big and amazing. Every once in a while one would flap its wings or fly to another spot. Then I looked down to the house to look to the kitchen window. I was too far to see if my mom was there watching. I took photos and then swayed in the top.
This tree had a nice bend to it. Not wanting to have my mom wait too long, I took another few seconds staring at the birds, then quickly climbed back down.
Once I got inside I asked my mom if she saw me. She said yes, but not till I was on my way down.
3-25-09: I felt this an oddly short entry compared to the others. I guess I didn’t have much to say.
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St. Patrick’s Day 2009. A day for the history books. In my almost two years of climbing everyday I have been spotted in trees, told to get down by security guards and workers, but never had the cops come… until March 17th 2009.
I spent the morning creating a device that would measure my height in a tree. I took a string and marked every foot with a marker. The five foot marks had two spots, the ten foot marks had three. The 25, 50, 75, 100, and 125 foot marks all had distance marking patterns. I wound the string around a wrench and screwed a nut and bolt on the end as a weight. I was eager to try this tool out on the large cottonwood tree by the railroad bridge just off the River Walk Trail I had climbed on November 13th of last year.
I had dropped ten twigs and timed their fall then calculated my height. I did the calculation wrong, as my sister pointed out and corrected me. My result was 87 feet and hers 117. I thought there was no way I was that high and I was determined to get a more accurate reading and see who was more right.
I biked down the trail and locked my bike at the bottom of the tree. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and I was excited to get to climb this tree again. I climbed up the same path I had done months before and got to my old high spot. And it was damn high. I could see the downtown skyline and people zooming by on I-64.
I took out my string and started to lower it down. The wind was gusting slightly and it was pushing my nut/bolt weight a little more than I wanted. I had a clear shot to the ground straight down
and the wind was pushing me into the branches risking entanglement. I realized I needed more weight so I wound the string back up. I attached my keys to it (making sure to leave the bike lock keys in my pocket since there were a bunch of pot smoking hoodlums dirt biking and ATVing all around me). Then I started to lower it again. It was working a little better but still getting pushed. I got it very near the ground when it got caught. I gave it a little yank and the keys fell off and landing in the grass. This wasn’t going well. I wound it back up again and this time used my phone as a weight. Probably stupid, but I did it. I lowered it once again and it did the best so far but still the string got pushed.
When the phone hit the ground I was around 75 feet. I figured with the bend I had a 3-5 foot margin of error. So I was way closer in my estimation, a little further off in my previous calculation, and my sister’s calculation was way off. I felt vindicated. My sense of distance is better than my math.
Then I wound my string back up. I had a lot of trouble as the string got tangled in two different spots. I just worked at it and eventually the string and phone was back in my hands. It was a long and arduous process but I got my results and was ready to shoot some pictures. I got out my camera and was shooting the river and the bridge
when I heard, "What are you doing?" on a loud speaker. My heart jumped and I looked over to see a cop car pulling up on the trail near the tree. I thought, how the hell does he expect to answer him? I snapped a shot of him as he got out of his car
then we had a quick conversation. I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me so I just started to climb down. I tried to calm myself and not rush. The most important thing was to get down safely.
At the last branch the cop started to talk me. He told me he got calls from people driving on the interstate. They were reporting a white male at the top of a tree. Since he got the call he had to come check it out. He told me he was sorry for interrupting my tree climb in a nice day. The cop was so nice. He said he had to be here when I got down because if he left before I did and I got hurt, he’d be responsible or something. I appreciated his concern and understood his position. I apologized for any inconvenience or worry and then he asked, "now, how did you get from that limb to that limb?" pointing to a spot halfway up the tree. I explained and was glad this interaction was going so well. He said he hadn’t climbed a tree since he was a kid and I told him I have been doing it quite regularly.
I unlocked my bike, took one more shot from the ground and looked up and saw another cop car had arrived. I shot one of them
and then wenton my merry way. I’ve always been so nervous and scared of getting caught by the cops, but this went great. Not to say all cops would react this way, but I feel fortunate I got the cop I did. Thanks copper, for being so nice about it!