DAY 179 – Daily Climb

DAY 179
09.30.07
TREE 96

After a very long morning of coffee service at the Mount, then an afternoon of cleaning it up I was looking forward to getting out to Hays Kennedy Park in Prospect to climb my tree. Again another beautiful sunny day. I love driving into Louisville with my windows down and music blaring. I got to the park and had to park off the side of the road since the park was packed with a soccer tournament and other park goers. I walked up to my tree thinking about the day I first climbed it and how it was a momentous day: my first opening in Louisville. I sized up my jump to grab the knots trying to determine exactly how to grab them while still avoiding my cut on my hand.

I tried once and got my right hand on but my left was in a bad position. So I re-figured then ran with a little more gusto this time. I stuck to the trunk then hopped up to the second set of knots. Then I reached for the lowest branch to pull myself into the limbs.

As I did this I heard an old guy yell to his daughter, "Hey (insert girl’s name), watch this guy in the tree, he’s a real tree climber." Trying not to speed up like I did yesterday, I just climbed concentrating on where I was going and avoiding my cut. The girl asked a lot of questions: where is he? is he scared? how high is he going? how will he get down? Her dad said he didn’t know and that she should ask me. All she asked was if I was scared. I said no. I climbed the sycamore to the top where my ribbon was and at this point my audience had become disinterested and continued playing basketball.

I got a very comfortable stance and had both hands free to take pictures.

After that, and getting a leaf, I moved my left foot down to start the climb down. As I adjusted my right foot on the limb I had been standing on, it suddenly broke. I immediately reacted by tightening my hand holds and shifting my weight to my left foot. That kept the branch from completely breaking off. I couldn’t believe it. A really close call but my climbing technique of 3-points worked again. It was incredibly scary but I didn’t come close to falling.

I continued down but bumped my ankle on a branch and knocked off a big scab. It started to bleed a lot but I just continued down then dropped to the ground.Close call!

10-1-08: I was pretty lucky that day. Just think, I was standing on that limb with no handholds taking pictures. And it was at the very top of the tree. I have always thought, though, if I did fall I think I would be able to catch myself on a branch before tumbling all the way to the ground. I really do. Especially in a sycamore with all the branches. Lot and lots of branches. I saw this video once of a guy jumping off a roof into an evergreen of some sort. All the soft limbs slowed him down till he was on the ground… fine.

My parents got back from Sedona, AZ on Sunday night and asked me over for dinner Monday. Before I went out there Drew and I went to our new house to sign the lease. We both got keys and were set to move in. I went to my parents and had food, caught up, then packed my bed into my truck. I drove straight out to the new house and unloaded, assembled and made my bed. I have been sleeping on a Thermarest and sleeping bag for the past month in Drew’s Germantown place. So I was real excited to get that bed set up. By then it was 11pm and I needed to climb a tree. Since I was at the new house in Butchertown I figured I would climb one of it’s 3 nice climbable trees. I have already climbed two, so you’d think I would have picked the last remaining tree. No… I picked the maple that I had climbed the first time the night of Thunder over Louisville. I got in and up fast and did the best I could taking pictures. The temperature has really dropped and it was starting to sprinkle the first drops we’ve seen in quite a while. The wind was gusting and I couldn’t stay still in the tree top. The images I got without flash are kinda cool.

That is the back patio area.

That is the industrial section just north of Butchertown.

And that is the steeple from the nearby church. I like this one especially.

I took some with flash as well. You can see that the wind storm really blew a lot of the leaves off but left the clumps of whirligigs behind.

Then I climbed back down really enjoying the cooler temperatures. It’s nice not to get so sweaty after a climb.

I then drove back to Germantown and got to bed to get ready for our big move.