On Saturday I led the first open to the public event climb in Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts. This was part of the 9/20 Franklin Park Coalition Fall Festival event and was a huge milestone for Boston rec climbing (previous group climbs have been by invitation only). The climb was held at an open grown pin oak, perfect for this sort of climb, plenty of lower limbs and many good anchor points. I had backup from a couple of arborist friends, TCI facilitator Paul Buck, another climber friend and two teens from the climb program I ran in the park this summer. We hung 8 ropes plus one rescue rope and moved as many people as we could in and out of the tree between 1 and 6pm. The climb was scheduled 1-4 but we extended it to get as many people climbing as possible. The biggest problem was 80% of the climbers were kids in the 6-10 age range, we only had 3 child-size NT harnesses. Luckily some of these kids are well fed enough that they can wear an adult size small NT harness. The climbers had to be very patient and wait their turn. We needed another tree, 8 more settings and a few more facilitators (hint, hint). I only had to lecture one parent who requested that each climber be limited to 1/2 hour on the rope. There's no rushing tree time. Her son eventually climbed and everyone was happy in the end. The response and participation was great and we had a diverse collection of enthusiastic climbers from the neighborhoods of Boston and some from outside the city. The worst moment was the boy who burst into tears when he arrived too late in the day to climb. The funniest moment was when an ambulance with flashers going backed up to the tree in a rush. As it turned out there was an injury at a rugby match on a nearby field, the ambulance driver assumed that it was a tree climbing accident, I guess. The most asked question was, \"When's the next climb?\". We're working on it!
-moss
