AlpineK

Wellllllll, there both cow colleges... Vandals Rule. Don't piss me off Sobo

Tree climbing TR

Trip: Avery Park Corvallis - Quercus garryana and Juglans nigra Date: 9/16/2007 Trip Report: The Pacific Northwest Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture had it's annual climbing competition in Avery Park. If you are not familiar with the rules of the competition keep in mind that you must use safe climbing techniques by ISA standards, and you can not use any tactics that would damage the tree more than breaking a twig. If you are familiar with loggers climbing poles keep in mind that spurs/gaffs/spikes are not allowed and you would get a DQ before you left the ground. Rich H giving a talk before the event starts The judge gets a mobile device for judging in the air. I've seen these things in magazines. They have been around for a short time. Basically the device is a mobile bucket truck that you can drive into a backyard. I've used plenty of bucket trucks, but nothing off road. One event is the footlock. In competition you do it on top rope, but in the real work world you just tie a prusik knot around the rope, or if you're really old school you solo. Another event is the Rescue. Dan Kraus helping out the dummy. View from a distance of the 2 walnuts used for the work climb and the masters challenge Both the work climb and the masters challenge involve climbing through an entire tree and ringing some bells. here is a contestant and judge. In the last competition I was in in (in this park) in '97 we used the larger walnut for the competition. In the old days there was only one work climb event. You had to start from the ground and climb the tree and ring some bells and then hit the ground safely. For the last few years the work climb starts from the top of the tree and ends on the ground; after elimination the best 5 climbers have to climb a tree from the ground. Standing near the end of the comp. There are 2 other events in the competition. One is the speed climb which is similar to the footlock except you can use branches and the rope to pull yourself up. The second event that I don't have pictures of is the throw ball where you throw a weighted bag over a limb from 50 to 70 feet above you and then pull your climbing line into the tree. I first met Dan Kraus about 12 years ago. For the past 12 years he has won the PNW comp until this year when he had a couple problems and lost to this guy from Kelowna BC. It's too bad since Dan has also won the International Competition once a few years ago. I haven't competed in a few years, but it's always fun to hang out with the group and there were a ton of educational classes that the chapter sponsored on the OSU campus. Fun times. Approach Notes: I drove the Chevy down I-5 to Salem and then headed to Buena Vista. I checked out the new paint job on the chip truck that Vern did after he bought it from me. We drove to Avery Park the next morning.

I had a week long trip in the Waddington area with markmckillop and pogrom420. Before we flew in to the mountain we had dinner with Decristo and his other buddy who posts here from time to time. Good times

My weekend is briefly over. I went to Corvallis and attended 4 days of classes for arborists. I was also on site for the 2007 PNW-ISA Tree Climbing Competition. That was pretty great and the Masters Challenge event took place in a Black Walnut tree that I remember competing in for the '97 competition. I'll try and post some pictures in the next day or two since I'm going to a wedding next weekend.

There's another great MP skit talking about an expedition to the, "twin," summits of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The idea was to build a bridge between the 2 summits. In fact here it is ebZxBEBfodc

That skit was one of several things that inspired me to climb back in the 70s.

Another Prophet I haven't paid any attention to this thread and all I have to say is: My chipper is diesel, so was my chip truck. My remaining rig is diesel. Diesel kicks ass

tanstaafl and I stopped by Harborview in the hopes we would see you, but you were busy with the doctors. We were on our way to watch the Mariners, and we figured you might be occupied for a while. Things didn't look good for the M's. They were down by 4 runs in the 8th, but then they stepped up to the plate and kicked some Devil Ray butt. I figure you'll do the same thing.

One of the good features about your house is your halfway between two of the finest Lake City Strip Clubs. I believe there's at least one more seedy looking joint nearby too.

Sorry John you ain't blue collar not by a long shot.

The high route to Pemberton Collecting glacier ice for cocktail hour Tracks on the Tenquille Glacier South towards Handcar I tried to post a link to the McBride Range Jordop and I did back a few years ago. I can read it, but I can't seem to link it from Bivouac. That was in my top 3 all time ski trips.

Damn Porter. I always used to think that nothing bad could happen at the UW rock. I know what it feels like to be badly messed up for a long time. I figured you'd done your time before this. Get better as soon as you can

I've done the route twice and had problems with that 3rd pitch both times. Both times we went left and found a way up to a large ledge system that went right. If I read the description correctly we should have cut right sooner. We went far enough left that the route got much easier than advertised. The first time I climbed it we went a little right on the ledge and did this crazy offwidth crack. The second time we went even further right and got to easier climbing above and we could see a 5.8 or 9 bellow us. There were a couple challenging pitches above, but if I had to pick a 2 pitch cragg climb in that area the first 2 pitches of that route are a good choice. If you want to here a hairball climbing story I'd be happy to tell you about the East Ridge of Oubliette in the Canadian Rockies. In the guide it's a 5.7, but after summiting and doing, "the easy descent," I'd give it a rating of 5.7d VS.

Your late getting that catalogue. I got a mailer from a company looking to sell Christmas cards to business owners about a month ago.

I'm just sitting here bored at home. Next week on Tuesday I'll be down in OR at a party for tree climbers. You guys should put something together. Either that or wait till Thursdays at Dante's starts up again.

I had a job scheduled on MI that day. Markmc... called me at 5AM and told me to turn on the TV. I did that and watched the whole thing in shock. At about 7:30 my employee showed up and we both just sat there and watched the TV for a couple hours. We eventually showed up at our job site to finish off this tree removal and put in a little work, but we spent even more time talking to some carpenters on the site.

I don't have a picture of it, but the coolest thing I ever road in was a 60s era Range Rover from the Tibet border to Kathmandu. The thing only had 2nd gear low range and high. I told the driver to shift up, and he said something like, "no good...only 2nd gear."

I've got one of these: Except without the rear cab and the macho extra lift. I'll probably let it go this winter.

When I was a kid my dad would loan me climbing skins for skiing. They were the pure kind real seal skin. He's still got a few pairs that he might be willing to sell the highest bidder.

No doubt. I'm just over a year out from my injury and even though a year sounds like a long time to be messed up I ended up getting really lucky and making a very fast recovery by the doctors accounts. When I got hurt I could have easily gone the way that guy did.

Even though the contest is way over I've been keeping tabs. I'm now at 199 lbs which is down 21 lbs from where I was.

Some things that you can get from the big guys now-a-days are a lot better than old stuff from the 70s, but I would agree that most things in the catalogues are products for trendy rich fools that would never do any actual climbing.

I haven't been watching a lot of movies recently. The most recent thing I did watch was Pan's Labyrinth. That was the best movie I've seen in a while. I did get a copy of an old movie Yojimbo back in May and that was great.