How many started out climbing trees?

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the Fet

climber

Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La

Mar 19, 2010 - 01:52pm PT

Oh yeah. We had a tree called the "Big Maple" in our yard. A huge old tree that people would stop and take pictures of it. The first branches came off the trunk a good 25 feet off the ground. We found that we could just barely jump up and grab the end of a branch, then pull it down and balance on top of it like a cat. Then slowly walk up it with our hands and feet until we were about 25 feet up and if we rolled to either side it woulda been ugly. But once you made it up far enough you could get into the branches and climb up over 100 feet and see for miles, it was great.

Wayno

Big Wall climber

Seattle, WA

Mar 19, 2010 - 02:02pm PT

I remember reading a dime-store science fiction novel in my youth about a civilization on another planet that lived and prospered in giant trees. Everyone was a climber. Damned if I can remember the title or author.

Hoffbrow

Trad climber

California

Mar 19, 2010 - 02:07pm PT

Thats it. I did climb tress when i was 6 to 10 years old. I built a tree fort when i was 10. Tons of fun. My older sister and i would climb into apple trees in Illinois and throw apples down to my younger sister because she was to young to climb up for them...

Studly

Trad climber

Mar 19, 2010 - 02:09pm PT

Maples trees were awesome for climbing in. I had my tree fort in one. Cedar and Doug Fir trees on the other hand you could get some vertical in. I could go up in one of those huge trees in my parents backyard and leave the real world behind. A couple hundred feet off the ground I could see all the way to the Olympic Peninsula and Seattle and everything else. Way up in the atmosphere, swaying in the wind, it was my first climbing love.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Mar 19, 2010 - 03:06pm PT

Yep. My parents were always retrieving me from trees. I later became the go-to neighboorhood second-story guy when people were locked out of their houses. When a teen I used to climb the tree behind our house and traverse to the roof about 40 feet up. I tried it during a visit home after I was a climber and had to back down off the moves. Maybe there is something to be said for not contaminating the act of climbing with thinking you know what you're doing.