Today I ascended to a record height. You veterans snicker if you must but no one ever told me that the difference between 63'(previous record)and 93' is HU-MUNG-OUS both emotionally and vertically. I could see the curvature of the earth, the stars were brighter and the birds were flying BELOW me. At about 85' I started feeling a bit anxious so I paused and reflected, "What would Steve(Sillett)do and the answer came to me,"Why he'd climb another 270 feet!" That helped put things in perspective so that last 8' became do-able. I took the opportunity to look upward at what may lay ahead, should I choose to go higher at some point, and I noticed the canopy become a lot more dense with limbage requiring multiple pitches. Up to now it had been mostly long single pitches.
When I first started climbing a little over a month ago, I looked up this massive 160'x 16'dia. Sitka Spruce and thought,"I don't know if I will ever be able or want to climb something this huge. How things change.
I really enjoyed the ride down...