Winter night climbing

I just did my third night climb in the last week and a half. The days are too short now and my favorite climbing time in the evening is now well past sunset. I'm finding out that night is a great time to climb during cold weather. Generally at night the wind calms down and the cold settles near the ground. During my climb I took off my gloves in the tree and didn't need to put them back on. Once I was back on the ground it felt much colder. Even though climbing heats you up the air temperature feels warmer 40 ft. above the ground. Even the tree had warm spots on the trunk and branches. I don't know if it was retaining heat from the day but in many places it was comfortable to hold on with bare hands even though everything is frozen solid. There is snow cover on the ground now and it helps to light things up at night. So I encourage any of you cold weather climbers to try a night climb, it's pretty nice up there!
-moss

Sounds great! Thanks for this--it indeed encourages me to do such a climb.

Where did you do it? I'm interested in any problems with logistics (just getting to the location, etc.). For me, I can't think of a suitable place to do a night climb other than in my back yard, which really is not very exciting at all.

Thanks again, moss--it really was good for me to read your post.

I have two backyard tree options for night climbing, one is endlessly challenging (honey locust). The other one I have to manufacture challenges, it's a red oak. I've also been climbing at other urban night sites which I bicycle to. For a big fir I had to do rope placement at sunset, it was too difficult to throw in the dark on that one. There are two other trees, a sycamore and a european beech which are relatively easy to throw into in the dark, especially with snow on the ground. I leave tag lines in the backyard trees so I don't freak out my neighbors with throwbags going bump in the night. So far the most challenging thing is positioning my House cambium savers. I use them for every TIP except short back-up tie-ins in the canopy. Last night I had to climb up high enough so I could see if I actually had the pipe over the branch. When I saw that it was only half in I set a second TIP and re-positioned it.

I'll have to admit that my off-site climbs are ninja, that is I'd be shouted out of the tree by an officer with megaphone if I tried to do it during the day. These trees are not high profile location but are in areas where there is enough foot traffic during the day that a concerned citizen would probably drop a dime on me. Well that's another advantage of night climbing, it opens up the options. If people barely notice you in trees during the day they are definitely not going to see you at night.

PS:
It's wise to do tree assessment during the day for planned night climbs.
-moss

Hadn't thought about winter night climbing yet, but the days are indeed short enough that you considerably expand the possibilities. Right now I'm in the end-of-semester crunch and I haven't had time to climb for a couple of weeks. My only night climb was in the middle of the summer, and my rope was placed in the day. I'll probably stick with inspecting and throwing while there is light, but maybe just leaving a throwline up until climbing time.

No problem finding trees around here; I'm a short drive from Chippewa National Forest and several state forests. I can hardly wait to get into my favorite canopy-emergent pine trees on Star Island.

Incidentally, Moss, if you run across anything about branches being more fragile in the cold I'd like to hear about it. The arborists on the buzz board seem to be more worried about climber function than tree function in the winter, but there is enough uncertainty about the branch strength issue in my mind that I'm still seeking reassurance.

If I can get my tail out of bed soon enough I'd like to be in a snow-covered tree as the sun rises...

Originally posted by MarkF
...if you run across anything about branches being more fragile in the cold I'd like to hear about it. The arborists on the buzz board seem to be more worried about climber function than tree function in the winter, but there is enough uncertainty about the branch strength issue in my mind that I'm still seeking reassurance.

This has been discussed on the TCI board but there was no clear conclusion. As I remember the main points that came out were the following:

1. health and structural integrity of the tree is the most important factor regardless of the season
2. branches may be at their weakest in spring or early summer

We think of materials (metals, plastics) being more brittle in the cold but wood is a complex composite material that has evolved to bear weight, it doesn't follow the same physical rules. If branches broke purely from cold temperatures you'd see branches falling with no wind on extremely cold days. Winter limb failure is associated with heavy ice or wet snow loading and wind.

I guess there is a reason why trees drain their sap down for winter, having it freeze in the cambium could cause plenty of damage. There is nothing structural about sap so not having sap in the tree shouldn't make it less strong. It might make it more strong since there would be less total load on the tree. It would be interesting to know how much extra weight (sap and leaf mass) a hardwood tree holds in the canopy in the summer vs. winter. It might be that the tree is bearing less weight and is overall safer in the winter.
-moss

Moss wrote:
>It would be interesting to know how much
>extra weight (sap and leaf mass) a
>hardwood tree holds in the canopy in the
>summer vs. winter. It might be that the tree
>is bearing less weight and is overall safer in
>the winter.

OK, I couldn't resist having a stab at this one. I tried some back of the envelope calculations to get leaf mass for a medium-large deciduous tree (about 0.5 m diameter). It depends a lot on the exact numbers you feed in (sapwood thickness, leaf area/sapwood area ratio, specific leaf mass, fresh weight/dry weight) but I'm coming up with around 100 pounds of leaves for a tree that size using reasonable values. The other factor is the dry-down of twigs and branches associated with cold-hardening, and I haven't turned up the pieces needed to do that one, but the mass reduction is probably not any greater than that from loss of leaves, since the summer water content of twigs and branches is a good bit lower than softer tissues.

So you have a medium large tree shedding about the mass of a tree climber in the fall (not the same thing as shedding the mass of a tree climber as a result of a fall...). Not very much; the benefit of leaf loss for winter survival may be as much from the reduction of wind loading as from the actual mass loss. A good wet snow or hard ice storm can probably add a lot more mass than that in a few hours.

Good stuff Mark, puts to rest any idea that a tree bears significantly more weight in summer than in winter.

I suppose you could do a failure test with a 2x4 or maybe smaller dimensional lumber with clean grain at different temperatures to see if there are any changes in strength.
-moss

I am well aware of how cold and downright brutal it can be climbing around steel bridge girders and the like in the cold winter winds when I’m at work. Therefore, I can truly appreciate the hardiness of a fellow that can come home from work at the end of a long cold winter day and then go back out into the crisp night air and place a line in a tree for a “snow climb”. <brrrr> My skinny old bones shiver at the thought!

In the evening when I’m making the trek home from work, I frequently see the arbor crews making their way back to the shop. I say to myself “how can these guys do tree work in this brutal cold all day?”. It makes me thankful that my job is only about 30% outdoor work.

You snow-climbers have my respect. It represents a true love of the art of tree climbing.

P.S. The links & tips that have been posted about staying warm on the climb, and how cold affects trees is some mighty good stuff. Thanks for the ever interesting threads here!

Just Cheking In
Electrojake

One difference for rec climbers as opposed to work climbers is that we don't have to climb when the wind is blowing out of the north and the temperature is dropping. The idea is to have an enoyable climb. It's not as rough as you might think, it really warms up when you're in the tree. I'll still accept your respect EJ

Here is a day climb on the beech first climbed at night. Fairly comfy with temps in the high 20's and the wind light. It was nice to be in the tree with the sun shining.
beech climb
-moss

Ditto on the difference between work and rec climbers. My job (biology prof) is mostly indoors in the winter and only partly outdoors in the summer. Getting up a tree is a nice cure for cabin fever, and if you don't go in the snow you don't climb for half of the year.

Rec climbers can pick their days. Like today, for example: the grading is done for the semester, the sun is shining, and it's a balmy 33 degrees with a light wind...

I'm out'a here.

moss, your mighty clever: a Beach Climb vs. a Snow Climb.

Wow, 20 degrees with a breeze... yeah, it’s do-able but I still feel that you really must enjoy the climb to hit the ropes in the winter.
Also...
Is the hazard your referring to in photo-1 of the Beech, nearby power lines?
Just wondering.

Electrojake
The Fair Weather Climber <grinning>

MarkF,

Thanks for your input on this Snow Climb stuff.
Nice web site you have there too. I checked it out when you came on board back in October. A photo and a bio, well done!

As for me... Being a student of recreational tree climbing, I do a lot more reading <hawking> than posting here at TCI. None the less I have been following the information you and the others have been posting on how winter affects trees and the climb. It’s all been quite interesting.

Thanks & Stay Warm Out There!
Electrojake

Electrojake

Glad you're finding the snow climbing stuff interesting. It seems like the folks on TCI and TCC ought to know a lot of what there is to know about this; we're not all southerners. The ones I'd really like to talk to are the northern arborists, but the nearest ISA arborists around here are an hour or more away (one of those is Jeff Jepson in Longville, MN). It's looking like the big issues have to do with keeping the climber OK, and those are mostly the same things that apply to any winter outdoors stuff.

Today was a fair weather climb. Three pitches to get 60 feet up a canopy emergent white pine. Temperature about 40, light breeze and sun. Dressed light and didn't need the gloves until the figure-8 assisted slide back down at the end of the climb. Even took a snooze on the tree frog seat for a while. About the best end-of-semester decompress I've had in years. The climb was easier than the 1 mile slog through wet snow to get to the foot of the tree. My last climb (Sunday) was a bit more rigorous at about 9 degrees.

Just out of curiosity, where's Smokestack NJ? It sounds like a good name for the industrial corridor around Elizabeth. If it's that, where do you find trees around there?

Smokestack, NJ... Not an actual city, a way of life.
You Sir are 100% correct! The industrial corridor around Elizabeth, New Jersey. That’s home to me.

Actually, if you stand anyplace in New Jersey that would allow you to have the Manhattan skyline in front of you and a rail yard or chemical refinery behind you... I would consider it my neighborhood. <spoken with typical blue collar pride>

As for me whining about the cold here in Jersey...
You stated in you post that your last climb was done in 9 degree weather.
I can not even comprehend how cold it must get in a place like Bemidji, Minnesota. Moss my be north of me but you Sir are north of America. I also know that you lose a few degrees of temperature with every 10 feet in altitude you climb. I would imagine it gets quite windy up there too, no?

Mild In Jersey
Electrojake

Oh yeah, I remember driving past Smokestack on the NJ Turnpike (I grew up just downwind of NYC in Connecticut). There are some trees around there, they're just very tough blue collar trees.

Not only is Bemidji north of America, it is also north of where most people live in Canada. The major city with a climate most similar to Bemidji is Moscow (not Idaho). There are lots of trees. If you aren't related to Nanook of the North, the time to come around here to climb would be late September to mid October - most years at that time it's sunny, cool but not cold, and bug-free. Check it out sometime.