Where the throwbag lands...

I wish there were more climbing reports being posted, I know everyone's out there climbing like crazy. Maybe this uneventful report from a semi-newbie will provoke you into posting your much more exciting climbs

After climbing all over my backyard red oak I'm finally ready to start working on my personal Mt. Everest. This is a Honey Locust next to the oak. It is big for a hardwood, the first limb that you can land on is at third floor height. From there you can't do much, have to climb to fourth floor height to think about reseting a second pitch.

I started throwing with a 12oz bag and Zing-it. I'm standing in my neighbor's yard with him and his dog. It's tight quarters, I have my back to his porch. There is a danger that I'll break windows in my (landlord's) house which is 10 ft' behind the tree. The first toss, one-handed, went straight up slightly to the right. It came down with a direct hit on the butt of my neighbor's sleeping brown lab. She was slightly startled, moved 15 ft. over and went back to sleep. Lesson learned, dogs are people too, move all living creatures out of the throwing area.

Number two, cradle throw. Excellent height, except it went slightly behind me, lands with a good thwack on the same neighbor's porch roof. Dog moves a little further away. No damage to the roof, we have a good laugh. Lesson learned, it helps to be lucky while you're making mistakes.

Number three is another cradle shot. It goes through a good crotch a little high, over a broken off stub and some branches with leaves. I'm able to get the bag down, tie on some slick line and pull that through the tangle above the crotch. A little work combined with serendipity and I get the line down into the crotch.

Pulled the rope up, its 120 ft long. I had enough to tie in and a little left over on the running end. I think that puts the anchor at roughly 50 ft. I tied in and body thrust up the trunk. The hang angle is such that I'm bouncing out a little, can only get reliable trunk contact with one foot. It's medium hard work to the first limb. At this point the light is getting dim and the tree is making me nervous through its sheer bigness and lack of branches before the next possible perch. I pull the running end of the rope through the crotch I'm standing in and descend down the other side. This gives me a better rope angle on the trunk so I go back up to the a limb 2 times just to enjoy the slightly easier work and get used to the tree. I tried a couple of inverse hangs, I'd never done that before, man that feels good! It was getting dark so I decided save the next part of the climb for another day.
-moss

Mistakes Made:

1. Lab- having a retriever anywhere near a throwline is a mistake. I've seen a beautiful 70' throw snagged out of clean air DIRECTLY above the target limb by a bored lab. I have to give her credit, she brought the bag back to Saplin' (my climb partner) after digging it out of the mud it crashed in after it's aborted mission. I wish you could have seen the looks on his face: concentration... exertion... hope... elation... confusion... anger...bemusement. It was like a 30 second soap opera without the cheesy music!

2. Someone watching you. I can make incredible shots, over HUGE limbs, through impossible snags, blasting through undergrowth. But as soon as someone walks over, crosses thier arms, and commences observation, I'm sure to toss (not necessarily in this order) 3 over my head, 2 striaight out, 4 striaght up, 13 near misses, 2 perfect shots interfered with by wildlife (darn squirrles), 6 over limbs that wont climb, and one mediocre shot that I settle upon to stop looking bad.

3. The others were play, this is for real. Pay close attention to lean and other growth patterns. Climbing under a lean can be exhausting, when climbing on top of the lean can be a breeze. My favorite tree has a nasty lean. I've climbed under it twice, and have been nearly wiped out when I reached the TIP. The last time I set my line and walked around to the back side of the lean. I was able to walk all the way up, by simply leaning into the trunk. Far easier, and quicker too. You may experience some friction resistance to "trunk rub", but it's easier than having to dangle.

Congratulations on making it to your "base camp 1" on you personal everest. Soon you'll be tossing down O2 containers from the top down on to the sleeping dog!

Climb Safe!
Icabod

Don't those trees have 3 inch thorns? If so- did you bleed? It could add to story material- you, with blood slick hands, striving upwards on an impossible mission. Maybe I overstate it.

Fair enough Moss. We should all be more active in contributing to this forum. So here's a little report. I'll stick it here (in addition to starting a new topic) even though it's not particularly about tree entry:

Since I'm usually climbing by myself, I get to name a lot of trees, if a name suggests itself, and they usually end up with masculine names like Lancelot, Old Scratchy, Gramps, and Nameless. Even when Dunlap joins me and names the tree, it's "Little Joe" "Adam" or "Hopsing" (get it? - TV's Bonanza and the Ponderosa Ranch). But a recent christening is making me reevaluate my naming bias.

I do a series of facilitated climbs for the Girl Scouts. We use a ponderosa in the mountains about halfway between Denver and Colorado Springs.

After cleaning and prepping, I next climbed this tree with the camp director, and she named it "Delilah." I immediately realized that the name fit perfectly with this graceful and lovely tree. Not only do I believe that the tree has taken the name to heart, but she has dressed up for the occasion.

Working by myself and having the first climbs scheduled for 9am (over an hour's drive from where I live), I decided to leave tag lines in the tree (pulled up and out of reach of campers), so that I could easily set my ropes on subsequent dates. But I didn't have enough line with me. So the director brought me a spool of hot pink parachute cord.

Now when leaving in the evening and arriving on another morning, I am greeted with the sight of this fine tree adorned with 12 hot pink streamers (6 doubled lines). Between climbs, pink Delilah is visible to all the girls using the camp trails.

And perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing, but I really think Delilah likes it. Now that she's all clean and deadwooded, she's out on the town in her hot pink duds. At least until next Tuesday, when our final climbs of the season return Delilah to her plain, but still lovely, finery.

Originally posted by Treeman
Don't those trees have 3 inch thorns? If so- did you bleed? It could add to story material- you, with blood slick hands, striving upwards on an impossible mission. Maybe I overstate it.

Sounds good Ok who wants to write the screenplay? I think we can get Mel Gibson to play the climber.

Ten years go I asked the former owners of the yard where this tree grows why they'd never had an arborist take out some of its dangerous looking dead branches. First they said because a bucket truck couldn't fit in the driveway. And that it had too many thorns to be climbed. I looked at the tree and said "What thorns?". I guess my neighbors hadn't really looked at their tree in a few years. They were surprised claimed it used to be covered with them.

The house has since been sold twice and the current owners are happy to let me climb it. I've climbed it again and advanced two pitches, finally into the lower canopy. On the way up I trimmed 3 sparse bits of thorns coming out of the main trunk, still soft and green, that was it.

A friend of mine who knows trees looked it over and commented something like this: "It's an elderly Honey Locust, strong and majestic but well past its prime. It barely flowers and it doesn't put energy into thorns anymore. It's just hanging in there keeping itself standing, putting out enough leaves every spring to keep going another season".

Now that I've been in this tree it's starting to feel more friendly. It's a tough old warrior, fighting days are over. Just wants to sway in the wind and throw a dead branch down every once in a while so people will remember it's still there.
-moss

I've noticed that all of the Honey Locusts planted all over the place along the streets and parks in Cambridge, Mass. (city next to Boston) have zero thorns. A little reasearch has found that there is a thornless variety widely used for city plantings.
-moss