UKH

As kids, many of us will have spent many happy hours up trees. Why don't adult climbers do this, especially when restricted from climbing rock or plastic?

I'll declare my interest; over the last year I've re-discovered tree-climbing, and since November I've done far more outdoor climbing than in any previous winter. I've got five trees in my patch of local Birmingham woodland that give several worthwhile 5/6m 'routes', and then there's masses of tree-based 'bouldering' near the ground. The climbing doesn't have the adventure of a sea-cliff or big mountain crag, but it gives much more adrenaline and variety than indoor exercises.

Of course, as a boy I climbed well within my limits, so I never fell. I didn't need equipment. As an adult climber I have the techniques (abseiling, via ferrata, prussiking, shunting) to go safely up a suitable tree on my own, rig a rope, then attempt hard variations. A few of you may have done the same during lockdown, but I don't get that impression; many have been complaining on ukc without talking of using local tree-climbing opportunities. Why?

Is it that climbing trees is associated with childhood; there is no status associated with success, or 'new routes'? Are we too self-conscious in public? We don't mind walkers seeing us climbing rock; why should we worry if they see us enjoying ourselves in a tree? In my case, some have chatted and some have ignored; I've had no negative feedback. No-one has said it's not allowed. or it's too dangerous.

Wild Swimming has become more fashionable in the last few years; now it's time to get back to nature. Get out there, and into the branches!

Looks about T2 or T3 to me.

Tbh never really understood tree grades.

1. Adult weight and tree branches are not always a good combination 

2. They're mostly very easy or else dangerous solo

3. Because there's rock to climb, without busting an ankle on a poor dismount in the park

4. ...actually, out for a stroll in a wood with a suitable audience (eg Easily-impressed child) I often do climb trees. But, I've never felt that recounting my exploits on UKC would win me many accolades.

We judge trees when we use them for abseiling. Any thick branch in good health on a mature tree will hold an adult; rotten branches can be avoided. We have to use similar skills when looking at rock, especially when it hasn't been climbed before.

But with rope techniques we can make them as safe as we have made new-routing of rock. Once the rope is in place then the climbing can become as hard as you want. Most of my routes are similar in standard to VS/HVS, but there are possibilities that are more difficult.

Not in Birmingham at the moment, nor in 90% of 'local' areas. I'll be tree-climbing after lockdown ends, as I don't always have the time to drive for an hour to reach rock, or when a weather forecast is poor. This applies to climbers in East Anglia etc as well.

I'm just hoping that more frustrated climbers will give it a try....

PS Photo of grand-daughter showing off to easily-impressed grandfather .... I couldn't get nearly as high.

I climbed a tree recently. It's one of two on my new croft.

Originally it was just to cut off a big dead branch that was hanging by a thread but it was quite good fun and I have found myself considering making a treehouse in it.

When I was a kid I got a lot of enjoyment from being in a tree and looking down on people because however obvious you were, people never ever saw you because they just didn't think to look up into the canopy.

A friend and myself have been climbing trees for many years now. We have a grading system for trees similar to UK climbing grades. The ethics are primarily not to damage the tree, (again parallels with rock climbing). We only use slings for protection, or a knotted runner akin to those used on Elbe sandstone. When and if we get to the top we tie a small token with our initials to a small branch. 

  I have found in general that some trees can be very difficult to climb. They are often slippery like wet moss covered rock. For us there is no cleaning or top roping. Everything is ground up and on sight. Runners and holds are often not as available as you would expect and you can end up back and footing or bridging up two slippery trunks without gear. Hand jams can be a useful technique too. Any sort of spiky footwear is strictly prohibited. Some of the trees have been very high and we have pitched them accordingly. We also give the tree a name if we get to the top. And the top? Well, you never really get there. Every tree is like a sacred summit whose very top remains untrodden.

It's fun and I'd do it more, but from around Feb-July I leave the trees to the nesting birds, which are not always visible from the ground; many species use old Woodpecker holes. 

"Tree-9? It's death on a stick." 

That's funny. Have a like.

Don't know if you have seen this. Chris Sharma top roping a Giant Redwood. Well hard!

youtube.com/watch?v=-4E-rw3AP_o&

Tree climbing is not foolish (well it can be but good judgement etc applies). I've climbed trees every year since I can remember and I've never stopped.

I offer one piece of advice, "leave something in hand to get down", (alternatively never climb up at your limit because the down climb is usually one grade harder).

I was an obsessive tree climber in my late 20s (in the late 1970s), when based in London. Primarily in Kensington Gardens. The first point about tree climbing is that only about 1 in 50-100 trees are really of much interest to the rock climber, being either too easier, or on dirty, grotty bark, or impossible. Branch climbing is not very interesting, though it can be good for fitness training.

I concentrated almost entirely on 'bouldering' on the large trunks (boles) of the oldest/gnarliest trees. I called it 'boledering'. There were a surprising number of very good strenuous and technical climbs in the 5a to 6a range, of between 10 and 15 feet high, a few being as high as 20. A small handful of trees had a '2nd pitch' of branch climbing which could take you to a 'summit' at least 50 ft above the deck (felt more like 100 feet because of the nature of the flat park, with minute little figures of people on the paths below.)

I never used ropes or mats ... because tree climbing was strictly forbidden (in the Bye Laws) and had to be done quite secretively. Most people just ignored you. You simply had to look out for. the wardens/keepers. Also, once you were a few feet above the ground, no one ever spotted you. (Almost no one ever looks up). I was once halfway up one of my 'boleder' problems when a guy had a pee behind the tree - on the far side from a major tarmaced path - and I was resting on minute holds with my heels about 1 foot above his head. He didn't realise I was there.

There were some mega-classics, like the 'Route of Knobs'. 1st pitch, 20ft 5b. Very interesting. Took a long time to work out. 2nd pitch. About 35 feet, 2a: the main top limb of the tree was set back at an angle of c.75 degrees and had been pollarded aeons ago so that it was a steep slab climb on rounded knobs, VERY exposed, the trunk tapering from c.3 ft in diameter to about a foot. Descent was on far side on small branches, overhanging, exhilarating.

Unfortunately, this, and most of the best classics were felled by the hurricane of 1987. I think about the only good tree remaining is a 6a problem near the Notting Hill side of the park, n-e of the Pond.

I used to have a kind of circuit, running between about 25-30 trees, very good exercise. And, of course, I was always working on new problems. This was always quite late on summer evenings, while I was in the film industry working all day in dark cutting rooms in Soho.

On the harder trees, I would find the easiest way first (obviously), practicing going up and down it, learning the moves very well, then I'd work on harder problem/s on the other side of the tree and use that first route as the descent route. On one very interesting climb, on extraordinary corky bark, consisting of lots of little friable cubes of wood about the size of a sugar lump (some v weird species) I spent days or even weeks working it out. It had no features apart from a slight spiralling depression. I had worked out the descent route on the far side (overhanging with big branches, tricky, then big jump to the ground) and had seen that my problem had a very good small, solid finishing finger hold in the fork. Working out the problem on this friable material I learnt every usable hold, venturing a few inches higher on each attempt, and then reversing it, learning the moves. Eventually, when I got to c. 4 feet from the top I went for it, and the finishing hold. Very satisfying.

This was another one that came down in the storm. Near the Kensington Gallery. 

It's good to hear that there have been isolated pockets of thoughtful tree-climbing; your practice of on-sighting with protection is close to my ideal. You clearly have found some impressive trees; which species give you multi-pitches?

You also perhaps haven't had the problems of bye-laws that Gordon had in London parks. It's easier to  use ropes in woodland that is not council parkland; my own local patch is a bit hidden, almost under the M6, with just a few dog-walkers.

Thanks for the link to the Chris Sharma video .... beautiful climbing!

It's fascinating to hear the details of your boledering; I guess that no-one else ever came to try your circuit .... all those never-repeated problems!

My trees don't have many features on the bark; they are of the more physical branch-swinging nature. 

I don't think that the Birmingham Botanical Garden would appreciate my exploration of more interesting specimens.

No, I never ever saw anyone else tree climbing, or even attempting it, and I probably went there as often as 150 evenings spread over 5 years.

I remember about 4 or 5 years later, after I'd left Kensington, and was in a west London MC, and climbing at E1-E2, I went back with another club member to show him, and I just couldn't believe how hard - and undergraded - my routes were! "5b" being almost certainly 5c. I guess it was like learning to climb on a whole very new kind of rock, with its own characteristics. You had to tune into it. Do lots of strange side hold moves on the feet (only thing which would work were Dunlop Green Flash tennis shoes, which had white rubber soles - crepe was useless.)

I think tree climbing is great fun. I still give in to the urge to swing into the odd tree now and again.

To be honest though I think it's a good thing it's not too mainstream. I wouldn't have thought trees, and the plants and animals that live in/on them, are as resilient to human activity as rock. At least in this country where the wildlife hasn't evolved with arboreal primates.

Great Post. I half climbed a couple of trees last weekend, partly to encourage a friends Grandson and partly because I hadn't climbed a tree in years. 

When I was a schoolboy I would often go tree climbing with friends in a local estate. One of my challenges was to climb up to the rooks nests, easily 100 feet high, and throw the baby rooks out of the nest which got them attempting to fly a lot sooner than they should have been. My friends would then hunt them down with air rifles and the dead rooks were then tied to a barbed wire fence and left for the badgers to feast upon. 2 things have always stayed with me. a) I always wondered how I didn't manage to fall out because when on the top branches it was very exciting when the wind was blowing and I was swaying about everywhere and b) what horrible little shits we were as young teenagers!

The beech trees we have climbed were all over 100 feet tall. One in particular had three branchless trunks which gradually diverged forcing us into ever wider bridging and back and footing. We called it Trilogy. I have a photo somewhere which I will upload if I can find it!   In rock climbing terms it was similar but a bit harder and more necky than Deer Bield Crack (HVS 5a).

I was just going to ask - ay, but what 'ave yer all ever done on beech? 

A timely thread. Me and some of my mates have continuing arguments about an accurate grade for Three Branch Tree (TBT).

We all stand united against top-roped ascents of trees though

Definitely HVS (High Very Sway-y) 

Yes, top-roped ascents are absolutely not in the spirit of it. It's a very beautiful world up there in a big park, say, particularly on a harder tree that no-one's (obviously) ever climbed before. Very private. You get 'very close to nature.' Up there with the squirrels. Sometimes with superb views near the top.

Quiz Time

Slackboot said:

"And the top? Well, you never really get there. Every tree is like a sacred summit whose very top remains untrodden."

 This however is not strictly true. I have just remembered that there is at least one tree where you must stand on the very top two branches.

A bit cryptic but does anyone know where it is? I know some here will have been there!

Yes, I remember balancing on those branches. My leader that day was quite short .... I think that he had to stand on tiptoe to reach the next holds.

My childhood tree in our back garden was some variety of cypress, which had a central trunk and reliable branches right to the top. I could certainly stand with my head above the foliage, looking out over the Norwich rooftops. 

Our ethics were suspect though .... my father had nailed blocks up the first 5 foot so that we could reach the bottom branches. Disgraceful.

I used to think that the tree was huge; I was rather disappointed when I measured it and found out that it was only about 35 foot high. Only one-tenth of a giant redwood!

It's just great that you started such a good thread and that you have also stood on the 'two top branches' in question. 

 There is something special about trees. I suppose it is because they are living entities, unlike rock which isn't but which I much prefer to climb.

Either North Crag Eliminate at Castle Rock of Triermain, or the second pitch of Suicide Wall at Cratcliffe (if my dimmish memory serves me correct) ??

Correct on the first guess. Somehow I thought you might get it. What year did you do it?  

I never did it, but my brother did in c.1970, and described it to me. Closest I got to it was Agony about two decades later.

Yes, I did in June 1971. The little tree was looking on its last legs then. I wonder how long it lasted?

I did it 9 years after you then John. Looking at the public log books for the climb, someone who did it in 2015 remarks that the tree has a lot of dead wood, but was still alive and still being used to climb that pitch. 44 years after you thought it looked dodgy! A very unique climb.

As a kid enjoyed tree climbing but with any difficult moves only at low levels. College club used trees sometimes. Iconfess I used to bang pitons in as practice which was useful for artificial climbing and learning to handle gear. Still climb trees a bit mainly in Royal Parks, more often to try rope new technique/gear. Deliberately ignorant of any bye laws. But often hard to be away from sightseers as feel like a complete showoff prat. On one occasion a concerned individual asked me if I was trying to hang myself.