DAY 184
10.05.07
TREE 106
I went to Joe Creason Park again to find a new tree to climb. I parked by the playground like I usually do but this time walked towards the tennis courts. It is a section of the park I have never even seen before. I didn’t see any good challenging trees before I got to the end of the road. I turned right and saw a sign with three leaves on it. When I got closer the sign read, " Louisville Nature Center." I was surprised that I had neither seen nor heard of it before. I walked to the building and saw maps for a trail. I walked around the building to the trail head and began my walk. The trail was skinny and the trees looked pretty young so the undergrowth was thick. I reached a certain point in the trail about five minutes in and sawa huge fallen trunk leaning over the path onto the fork of another tree. 
The angle of the fallen tree looked scalable. I snaked through some small saplings to the base where the trunk had been damaged and caused the fall. 
I climbed up onto the trunk and slowly cat-crawled up. The bark wasn’t too crumbly so I felt pretty safe. 
I got up to the fork of the other tree and took a seat. It was comfortable and I had a good view of my immediate area. 
I took some pictures and scanned for a possible alternate route down. Nothing seemed plausible as the fallen tree limbs looked very dead and unsafe. 
So I tied the ribbon and gauged my descent. I chose to go down backwards and very carefully would straighten my legs then move my hands back until I was in a crouch. I did this many times extremely slowly and was quite scared. I had to concentrate on my balance, but I made to the bottom safe. I am appreciating the experience of new grounds and trees.
10-5-08: When I crawl up a fallen tree it makes me feel like a raccoon, or squirrel. Mostly because I know these types of animals climb up the same way. Maybe not as slow and as scared, but I find their fecal piles and I know they’ve been there. Maybe one of these days, to let them know I’ve been there, I’ll leave my own pile of whatsit. That is definitely something I have never done in a tree. It was nature’s cruel joke to give us an anatomy that requires clean up. Unless I climb with toilet paper, I imagine I won’t actually do this. Of course, since I usually climb down the way I went up, I don’t need to be leaving any stinky obstacles in my way.
I happened to be by Cherokee Park yesterday morning so I rode in by the off-leash dog area off Lexington Road. I quickly spotted a medium sized maple tree with turning leaves. I walked through the dew covered fallen leaves to the base of the tree and leaned my bike against the trunk. Like I had done a few days ago, I climbed the tree with my messenger bag. I went up through the branches often leaning far back with my feet at the base of the branches against the trunk and my hands a few feet out on limbs higher up. Towards the top I cleared a collection of dead twigs and leaves that had clumped and gathered where four limbs branch off. Once cleared I climbed and stood where the dead leaves once were. It was a sturdy spot, good for picture taking. I unzipped a pouch in my bag and pulled it out. In the process I saw a little clear plastic bag come out and start flipping through the air towards the ground. At first I thought it was trash… then I realized it was a bag holding cuff links that Rachel brought all the way from Portland to give back to me. I tried to watch them to see where they would land, but I was too high and there were too many branches and leaves to see where it went. There was nothing I could do immediately so I just took some pictures. Only a few before my battery power was depleted. 
While looking up at the leaves I notices all the collections of whirligig seeds were all brown and just hanging by small threads. Soon they were going to naturally spin to the ground. I thought I would help them a bit and violently shook the branches I was holding onto. Hundreds of the propeller shaped seeds began to twirl and float their way down all around me. It was awesome to see as the morning sun was breaking through the breaks in the leaves. Then I realized I wasn’t helping my cause in finding the small, clear bag holding my cuff links. Oh well.
I climbed down and once on the ground began my careful search for the lost items. It was not going well. A few layers of lightly colored maple leaves already blanketed the grassy floor. There were also some small vine bushes that could have caught the bag, or provided cover from my eyes. As time went by in my search I got closer and closer to the ground. Then suddenly, after fingering through some leaves my eye caught a bright light. The sun was reflecting off the bag which had fallen on top of one of those bushes. Such a sense of relief fell over me. It made the whole climbing experience a success… a story with a happy ending. Something I could write about in my blog. Now every time I wear my cuff links I will think of that tree. Pretty soon everything in my life is going to remind me of a tree in one way or another.
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