Boston area recreational tree climbers

It's spring (like I need to tell you) and I've been climbing as much as I can. No more thawing out frozen hands in the tree, yipee! I recently got back from climbing in North Carolina with a gang of like-minded tree huggers. We climbed and camped in a beautiful county park called Tanglewood in Clemmons, North Carolina. This was a permitted climb arranged by Bob Wray of Blue Ridge Tree Climbing in Virginia. We climbed for 3 days, night and day until my arms just about fell off. We got up into some TALL Tulip Poplars and a few other choice oak species. These were old-growth-like trees in a forested setting. I enjoyed sleeping in a treeboat (special tree hammock by New Tribe) high up in a Willow Oak, was sweet to wake up to the dawn chorus and to climb around before breakfast without having to get up into the tree first. You can find some reports on this climb event here: Treestock '08 reports on the Tree Climber's Coalition message forum A bit of video here: Treestock video They're a little ahead of us down south in securing permission in public parks and land to climb, we'll get there eventually. -Andrew aka "moss"

The BARC community web site has been up and running for little more than 24 hours and I'm happy to see many of my tree friends and future climbers joining in. Thanks are due to Joseph Porcelli of Neighbors for Neighbors for encouraging me to get this going. -moss

I just went to the Tree Care Industry Association exposition in Hartford, CT. If there are new climbers here who want to try out some gear before you buy it (a good idea) then make a point of going to either the TCIA expo sometime or maybe NE Grows (if it's open to the public). There's nothing like actually sitting in a saddle to get an idea of the type and size you need. I think the 2008 TCIA expo is in Milwaukee next year. Maybe someone here will know if NE Grows is accessible to non-commercial participants. I wonder if BARC could participate in NE Grows somehow...

Hey Andrew and new friends,

Thanks for pulling this together. I looking forward to challenging myself, get away from my computer, being outside and being a kid again.

Joseph Porcelli

PS> check out another network here on NING called at http://mugproject.ning.com.