Hello Everyone,
I have been climbing for the Oregon red tree vole (shown in my avatar) for about 15 years. It started out in a volunteer capacity, but I now do it both professionally and on a volunteer basis. The Oregon red tree vole is a small arboreal rodent that lives in the canopy of Douglas fir forests on the west side of the cascade mountains. It range extends from the border of oregon/washington (no tree vole has ventured and persisted past the gorge) to northern California’s kalamath region (further south is the range of the Sonoma RTV, which is a sub species of the RTV). The RTV is provided a certain amount of federal protection from logging on BLM and Forest Service lands as it is uncommon to rare in some places. However, due to the limitations of the protocol used for locating these animals and the inefficiency inherent in contracting out the surveys, numerous important colonies are left undiscovered and unprotected. Early on I noticed that the surveys weren't even identifying a fraction of the colonies present, if at all. So I started climbing the big old growth douglas firs in proposed timber sales and reporting my findings. I was very inexperienced when I started. I climbed with prussiks and getting into these tall trees was slow going. At 1st I would shot bag from the ground into smaller trees adjacent to or close to the tree I thought contained an RTV nest (usually a huge old growth tree with a lot structural complexity like a broken top or reiterated limbs) and I would climb high enough in that tree to then throw a shot bag over into the tree I wanted to climb. I would then come to the ground and set a rope up in that tree and climb it. If I topped out the tree and didn’t find a rtv nest, or it was an inactive nest (inactive nests only get protection if they are next to active ones) I would keep throwing over into adjacent trees and climbing them until I found an active RTV nest. This method worked and required minimal equipment. Using this method I was able to climb about 1 big tree a day (they are about 200' tall, with dbh's between 48-80') I did this for a few months. Then I went to New Tribe to buy a harness and Sophia, the owner, showed me a brochure on bow/arrow tree entry written by her ex-husband. Besides the harness, I purchased a reel attachment, solid fiberglass arrows got a compound bow from ebay. With guidence from that brochure, I then taught myself how to set lines. I also got a more people actively involved the team so we could get more done (I never climbed alone, I would always have 1 person on the ground or within yelling distance). Using the bow entry method we were able to get 1-2 trees done a day per person. The next advance in technology was switching to a crossbow (or compound crossbow). The compound bow is bulky and difficult to shoot. It's more prone to “airmails” (when you shoot and the fishing line snaps off the arrow - we would yell AIRMAIL so the others in the area would get silent and listen for it falling. Recovery rate is probably in the 50-80% and can be increased if you “pink” your arrows/bolts) and it's harder to teach new people how to accurately shoot if they don’t have any archery experience. Once we had crossbows and compound crossbows, more good shots were made and less time was spent looking for airmails. By this time, our team had grown into a non profit organization called “NEST”, Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team. We were leading teams into timber sales across Oregon and getting a good turnout of volunteers (usually 4-6, but as many as 20!). The next technology advance for me was switching my slings and friction hitches (prussik, backman and klem hiest) for some mechanical ascenders. I adopted the frog method (lead ascender with a foot sling, croll for progress capture and a foot ascender) and once mastered, I was able to walk up the line and get 4-5 big trees in a day. We still teach SRT with just slings and friction knots to new volunteers because we feel they should be learned 1st, and the gear is less expensive (we are an all volunteer group with a very small budget). I however, am amazed that I climbed for so long with just a bachman and a foot sling. The last technology in climbing that has brought more efficient use of time is a modified pistol crossbow. There used to be a powerful pistol crossbow by barnett called the trident. Well they are no longer in production and costly to buy on ebay. The china made 75lb pistol crossbow can be modified to get extra power. Normally that pistol crossbow could only launch a bolt about 50-70 feet in the air. It's pretty accurate and easier than trying to shot bag so high. However, a lot of trees we climb are just to tall to get shots into. So you can order an extra prod and insert it along with the original prod, thus it becomes a double prod'ed pistol crossbow. These modified pistols can launch a bolt about 120 feet, sometime more depending on your angle. I have made 1000s of shots with mine and it has yet to explode in my face (I don't think it will as I got the idea from another RTV climber who had employed the method for years). Another bonus is that since the bolts are so short, they often can be pulled back with-out having to let them to the ground to take off the fishing line. Thus you can get more shots off per minute. The person who showed me this method can set up about ten 100 foot climbs in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the high needed to climb to and the terrain.
So that's my not so short introduction and a cursory outline of my climbing journey. If you have any questions about the red tree vole (the most arboreal mammal) or the organization that I climb with (NEST) just let me know. Also consider this an open invitation to come to oregon and help find red tree voles.
