On Fear and Nervous Tension.

I am not a scientist, or a psychologist for that matter. But as an arborist and production climber, I deal with fear and nervous tension on a momentary basis. I started thinking about this concept after watching August Hunicke's recent interview with the great Gerry Beranek, two phenomenal tree men in their own right. The question came up: What are you afraid of? And the interview slowly muted away from my attention as I drifted into deep contemplation on this matter: what am I afraid of?

Wow, I'm afraid of a lot of things: rigging wood over precious targets, working in dead or dangerous trees, securing my working anchor properly, cutting myself with a handsaw, cutting myself with a chainsaw, drilling perfect cable holes in the proper locations, stinging insects that may be present somewhere I can't see high in the canopy, getting dehydrated on a hot day, being late to a jobsite, forgetting a critical piece of climbing gear, taking a swing and missing big, throwing a limb out and missing the drop zone, putting a co-worker in a dangerous situation, and I can go on and on about the different aspects of my job that strike up a sense of fear somewhere deep inside me.

So now all of sudden I'm not feeling so damn rough and tough about being a tree guy, a high climber and a feller with pitch and sawdust running through my veins. I can find fear in just about every single aspect of my job. My anxiety, at this point, should give me an ulcer by the end of the week. My heart rate is skyrocketing, and I'm totally rethinking where my hard-earned liberal arts degree has landed me. You are the farthest thing from fearless plays over and over in my mind.

Oh no! What is it that I'm NOT afraid of?

And I think that's it, maybe that's just the point. It's not that we defeat fear or that we somehow ignore the fact that its there or that its presence is very real, that we can take it and ball it up and stuff it into the chute of the chipper and get rid of it forever and ever. But rather, we embrace it. This fear and nervous tension that we feel in many situations provides a sense of normalcy, and without that nervous tension in the air something would be totally wrong and foreign. Without the fear, things can go catastrophically wrong. Without fear, complacency ensues. We all know the cost of that.

In this sense fear may be our greatest tool, and yet we spend so much time trying to suppress the sense of fear that as climbing arborists we don't realize the importance that it plays on such a minute level.

We've all heard it before, "Oh in my younger days I was totally fearless!"

Yea, and that got you a bad back, fifteen surgeries, a beer gut and a vocabulary that's dirtier than a sailor fresh off the Mediterranean Sea. The only thing you're doing is telling stories about when you used to be fearless.

So I say, keep the fear close to you and embrace it. Clip it to your saddle and keep it with you always. To be able to climb high and prune fast is not something to be taken for granted. Not everyone is capable of it. Don't create some fancy illusion that fear isn't constantly creeping into your mind once you get up high and stakes are raised and the blocks are set. Analyze the situation and then analyze it again. Double check and then set the notch and then let it run. Use the fear like a hitch, fine tune it, make it yours.

Of course, I guess someday we'll all have beer guts and bad backs and talk about the days long ago when we used to fearless...

What's on your harness?

I'm a relatively organized person. When I climb, I like that to be reflected in my gear and how it's put together. So I'll take a few minutes to talk about what's on my saddle (for the moment), and briefly touch on why that gear is there.

First, my lanyard. Yale 10mm beeline original as the base. The progress capture device I use in this system is a Trango Cinch with a Rock Exoctica Rock O carabiner for attachment. At the opposite end is an ISC triple locking rope snap on a swivel. In between those two devices I have a rope thimble fixed on 6mm cord attached to the lanyard with a six-coil prusik. The thimble allows me to convert the lanyard to a static application, thus doubling the potential working length of the system without adding more rope. I ass a stopper knot in the tail so I don't slip off the deck.

Ascenders. I carry a Petzl Ascentree with a footloop and an old, trusty Petzl Pantin (right foot). I've gone back and forth in the past between the single handle ascender and the double, I guess I just feel more powerful with two hands on the wheel.

Three CMI utility webbing slings (24", 30"). Footloops, re-directs, light rigging, gear staging, hitch-tending and the list goes on and on and on.

Sterling Chain Reactor daisy chain sling with Rock Exotica Pirate carabiner with wire corner trap. This sling is my primary static re-direct device in my SRT work-positioning system. It has a multitude of purposes as well.

Four Petzl Spirit non-locking carabiners. I think these carabiners might see more deployment than any other piece of hardware I have. Although it's mostly for quick and temporary attachment of gear, I also like to lock my ascenders in with these carabiners everytime I'm on the ascent, which protects the camming devices from slipping off the rope and causing a precarious situation.

Mallion rapide delta quick link. The only thing I use this piece of gear for is converting my climbing system from a basal anchored system into a top anchor or canopy anchored system, which happens more often than not once I reach the primary suspension point and line advance from there.

2 Petzl Ok oval carabiners, 1 CMI micro pulley, 28' 8mm beeline eye to eye prusik. I keep this little package neatly attached on the back of my saddle because of how much I utilize the tail end of my climbing rope to line advance and to double-crotch while working. If I have a series of line advancements to reach a final tie-in or suspension point I'll use a traditional split-tail configuration on the tail end of my SRT line rather than feeding a ton of rope multiple times before reaching the final destination.

2 bridges (Petzl sequoia). 2 Petzl microswivels (one small, one large). Considering how much I double crotch and utilized my lanyard off my bridge rather than side D rings, I've adopted this technique because it feels much better than running two systems from one bridge. Also, it looks super cool.

Oh yea and one little 8 oz. throw weight for advancing my system, fishing line down through tight crowns and also for adding tension to the tail of my rope while initially ascending.

I must say also that I do not leave the ground every single time with every single thing on this list. I guess you could say that this is my standard mature tree package. In some cases I leave much of this on the ground, and in other cases I stack a few more goods up for the ride.  And, sometimes its not just one climbing rope, its two, so you'd have to add another climbing hitch system to the mix.

I guess what I'm saying is, if I was stuck on a deserted island with one beautiful 80' oak tree, I would need these things, my rope runner and a hank of Yale Blue moon (150'). I guess I'd need a throwline too and some sandwiches and a couple cans of soda but that will be for another post. Until then, stand clear, headache.

Re-direct.

Ingredients:

Sterling Chain Reactor (daisy chain)

Triple locking HMS carabiner

Clove Hitch

Yale Blue Moon (doublebraid)

Directions:

Squirrel up to re-direct location. Lanyard in. Girth hitch daisy chain on desired stem. Install HMS carabiner onto daisy chain. Install doublebraid line onto HMS biner with clove hitch to taste. Stir. Let simmer and descend to work like a boss.

Windy Valley Woodlot Management.

Here are some highlights from the past week in Forkston, an ongoing woodlot management project that I look forward to every winter.

Stay Clean. Stay Organized.

Bottom line is: keep it neat. Whether it's in the air or on the ground, organization is definately a key to day to day success. It doesn't just have to be climbing related either. Packing lunch, pre-work routine, the work truck, whatever. Organize it, man.

Taglines.

Another year has commenced, and I haven't been posting much, although I have been climbing quite a bit, so that is a good thing. Maybe it's a cop-out. Maybe a resolution is in order, but I'm not trying to make any promises I can't keep, so I'll leave it at that. A nice selfie, and some thoughts for the day.

I have been contract climbing in Forkston this past week on a project that has been on going for a few years. Selective thinning of the woodlot, mostly for the firewood resource.  On my end, lots of aerial felling, especially with the use of a tagline for added control throughout the felling process.  The canopy is dense enough to typically have an alternate anchor in a nearby tree while working the spar of the removal at hand from gaffs and lanyard.  SRT work positioning both with basal and canopy anchors has been employed in most cases.

But it's the tagline that amazes me, as I'm able to time and again pull over large tops through tight felling lanes with just the right amount of leverage and tension. Simple physics, and it just never gets old.