UKC

Anyone else do this? Any good stories related (or not!) to this? Fun things to try? I find it good practice for heel-hooking......
(By tree bouldering I mean the classic ropeless climbing of....trees of course!)

In reply to ClimberGirl:

I spent most of my early childhood up trees with friends... literally ALL my spare time between 7 and 14. Then when I went to secondary school at 14 I asked the older kids which were the best trees to climb... I got some very funny looks. Ended up not climbing any more.

I should really get back into it!

We used to snap off all the lower branches of our best tree patches so that only my group of elite climbing friends could monkey up and swing between the trees (literally). And there are still a couple of large beech trees in Wiltshire that have wooden planks and scaffold poles (as seats or bridges) 20-30m up which have now grown into the trees. Ah the good times...

In reply to ClimberGirl:

Yes, John and I used to do loads when we first started climbing between c. age of 17-19, in Knebworth Park. Hornbeams provided the best, most rock-like climbing, but were quite small. There were several much larger ones that were very good. A decade later, while working in London, I tree-climbed intensively in Kensington Gardens, and even had my own 'guidebook' to it. Very few of them were much good, but the good ones were very good. It was all excellent for building up strength and fitness, particularly if you ran from tree to tree.

In reply to ClimberGirl:

I like climbing trees or bridges or random buildings, must admit though when people see you they think you're a proper weirdo.

In reply to Wsdconst:

Well we are 'proper weirdos' though really...... Climbing up things the hardest way possible just for the sake of it and then coming straight down again is pretty weird!

In reply to ClimberGirl:

Yeah I suppose the common sense of our ancestors would have been to take the easiest route, I'm so glad common sense died out

In reply to ClimberGirl:

Best done in wellies.

In reply to ClimberGirl:
What's the law on tree climbing in public parks?

Anyway when I was young, there was a very large apple tree in our garden and my two brothers and I would race each other doing circuits of it, swinging from hands and legs. We had a local reputation!

Hope the tree is still there (house sold years later): it was an important part of my childhood and it felt like a friend.


Some research has shown it is against Glasgow council bylaws to climb trees in the park. 😕

In reply to Flinticus:

Written permission needed in Royal Parks:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/1639/regulation/4/made

In reply to felt:

How many people do we reckon have ever done that? I've also just found myself guilty of my first ever known crime :-S

In reply to ClimberGirl:



Am a keen fan, although I don't enjoy it as much in winter (they're usually too wet).

- Have a tree in my garden that has a fantastic 4m layback crack. Really nice to climb. It also is the tree I use for practicing prusiking/abseiling as it has a huge branch about that high on the other side.
- A tree in the park that can be climbed to about 4m without using any hands (but is challenging). This same tree also features some good narrow and wide-grip pullups, and a mantelshelf branch.
- A tree that has a perfect pullup branch - and is nice for just practicing heaving yourself up into the branches.
- A gigantic oak with a lopped off bough provides a challenging climb. There's a grotty pocket, some crimps and some of the footholds are pretty small.
- Another tree I think I did have to heel-hook to climb, but I'd had a few beers - and when I jumped off, I landed awkwardly and hurt my ankle. I don't climb that tree anymore

In reply to ClimberGirl:

I do like climbing trees! You'll never get a bad person who climbs trees, well known fact that.

There's a tree for everyone...

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

In reply to ClimberGirl:

I used to have a tree bouldering circuit in a local wood before we owned a car (I has to rely on lifts to get to the climbing wall). Bark isn't strong enough to give you really small holds (they just break), but often the best moves were on big trees that had lost branches or had them chopped off. These can form hard "shields" of flat wood with small edges, or good pockets. I used converse trainers rather than climbing shoes.

Obviously be wary of dead wood as it breaks more easily, and watch out for wasp/bee nests too!

In reply to ClimberGirl:

I am a geocacher, and where I live there is a good circuit of caches up trees and in other high-terrain spots - including one or two I have placed myself. There are a few little sub-contests like "first to find when free soloing", and some you can't do without ascending a rope. There was one of the latter type elsewhere in the country where a woman's ropes got stuck and she had to be rescued by the fire brigade.

In reply to Flinticus:



Yes, it's invariably illegal/ against the byelaws (which are usually clearly posted near the park entrances). This was one of the hazards of climbing in Kensington Gardens - being caught by one of the Rangers. Happened to me once. But you could see them a long way off and just had to pick your moment. Once you were about 8 feet or more above the ground you were usually safe, because it's an extraordinary fact that people seldom look up. You also climbed very quietly.

In reply to bouldery bits:


The ONLY footwear I found any good for tree climbing was Dunlop Green Flash tennis shoes, because they had rubber soles. Worn with socks, very tight. Preferably not too new, but with well-worn rounded edges. Had to be bone dry. (I always wiped them on side of my jeans.) The rubber on rockclimbing sticky boots – particularly in the old days – was too hard and surprisingly not very good on most trees. I'm talking about the 'bouldering' parts of the trees i.e. up to the first branches, the best ones being very rocklike. But very few species of tree were suitable. Beech were technically the hardest (very small holds in hard smooth bark); well-pollared hornbean the most rocklike; sycamores not too bad if very old (i.e. much pollarding, giving knobs and pockets). There was also a type of tree in kensington gdsn with very fluted bark, that seemed to get struck by lighting a lot, which would leave a very fierce, rounded overhanging layback edge.

In reply to ClimberGirl:

PS. I used to call the bouldering up to the first branches 'boledering'.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Bringing back some good memories!

I used converse trainers, which also have a rubber sole, as I too found climbing shoes didn't work that well .

Old Beech I often found unclimbable, but occasionally you get a hole/branch in the right place which often leads to athletic climbing wall type moves.
I found oak can be good and sweet chestnuts can have good slab climbs (the often lean a bit on slopes).
Really old silver birch can have "flutings" on the trunks that can be great too, but you don't see many.

In reply to RobertHepburn:


I'd completely forgotten about those 'slab' climbs. There were two or three in Kensington Gardens, one of which was a brilliant VS? 4b. It was quite scary near the top because it took you out about 20 feet up above a wide tarmac path. Serious if you fell. Actually, a lot of them would have been quite or very serious if you fell.

The best climb in Kensington Gardens sadly came down in the storm of 87 (along with many others). Amazingly hard 5b+ climbing up to the first bough (v hard in reverse) c. 20 feet. Then a rewarding 'top pitch' of at least 30 feet up the central limb on nothing but bosses (v old stumps of sawn off branches), c. 2a, technically, slightly set back, so in balance. Very exposed. You came down the reverse side on branches, overhanging, very safe, exhilarating.

Best in Knebworth Park is still there. I was quite proud of that. Took me about 5 years to do it c. HVS 5a solo, but more like E1 solo because of an appalling, potentially ankle-snapping landing on big twisted tree roots on the side of a 'dell'. Could have been as hard as E2 5b. Very good, because it's overhanging above the crux, and fortunately an amazing hidden undercut appears at just the right moment, otherwise you'd have to reverse the very thin crux, v fast, before you fell off. I tried repeating it 5 years later, and had great trouble, and finally re-did it. So only ever did it twice. Fortunately the descent was much easier, kind of strenuous Severe stuff on one side of the tree. There were about 2 other easier routes on the other side of c.HS to VS.

In reply to RobertHepburn:

Actually. the hardest climb in Knebworth Park was done by John in c.1969. A huge, nearly horizontal/slightly inclined bough, not very high off the ground, c 10 ft off the ground at the start and 15 ft at the finish, but about 25 feet long, at least. You couldn't climb the overhanging side by wrapping your arms and legs round it, it was just too large in diameter. So you had to 'hand traverse' it, with your hands on the r/h side, and your right foot hooked up, very precariously, on the side of the rounded bough. It was like The Sloth multiplied by about 4 times in length, and about 4 times as hard, on very poor, rounded holds. It was desperately strenuous. About half-way along there was a subsidiary branch where you could escape, and walk down the top of the bough. After that you just had to keep going about another 10 feet to another similar fork. I bottled out at the first fork. I'd like to see someone repeat that. It's still there, and looks all very innocent, quite close to the old driveway to St Mary's Church. Just on the left-hand side of the track, quite near the gate (still accessible for pedestrians, but not by cars). I'd put that at v.sustained and strenuous E2 5b/c.

In reply to ClimberGirl:

Book out in April:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tree-Climbers-Guide-Jack-Cooke/dp/0008153914

In reply to ClimberGirl:

Normal childhood behaviour in the old days. We had an apple tree in the garden. My brother was usually to be found on the shed roof if not up the tree.

In reply to ClimberGirl: nearly killed myself as a brat by tying a piece of nylon rope round my waist and jumping out of a tree house. God knows what I was thinking, but it didn't half hurt. Fortunately it wasn't very high and my mate could extricate me. Bruises were tricky to explain. I was a much braver child than I ever am climbing now.