Boston get together 6/17

The June 17th climb in Franklin Park was a great success. Greg Mosman and I prepared the site and placed tag lines on Friday morning. TCI facilitator Paul Buck and I showed up 7:30 Saturday to finish site clean-up and hang ropes. The climbers showed up at 9:00 and the fun began. While Paul gave an intro to rec climbing on the ground I finished hanging ropes and installed a treeboat in the fine European Beech. The group included first time climbers, one from a previous facilitated climb, a couple of arborists and a newspaper photographer. The new climbers did very well and made good height in the tree. The news photographer Dominic was very determined and working hard to get the shots while dealing with hanging 50 ft. off the ground for the first time.

The beech offered some excellent branch walking opportunities and a swing traverse to a secondary trunk (using technique inspired by watching Climber020 in New Jersey). This underscored for me the importance of climbers getting together to share ideas and technique. It allows us all to make quantum leaps in our climbing skills and appreciation of rec climbing.

The most difficult aspect of the climb was convincing one climber to get out of the treeboat so another could get in. So painful! Need more treeboats.

I think the arborists had a great opportunity to observe the safe and effective methods used in rec climbing. After everyone got out of the tree I demonstrated SRT technique using Petzl ascenders and "sit stand" technique, finishing with switchover to rappel. Also showed off the noose release method I've been working on.

The climb wrapped at about 1:00 pm with smiles all around.
-moss

Here are additional comments on the climb from co-leader Greg Mosman and others:
Boston climb reports

The idea for the climb was initiated on the Arboristsite.com message board. In a small way it was historic in that it was the first organized rec climb in Boston. It was also notable because we brought arborists, rec climbers and first-time climbers together in one tree and had a great time doing it.

The plan going forward is to do this as a monthly climb. I'll post a date as soon as we have it.
-moss