Topping Trees

My introduction to tree climbing began this week, and straight into the deep end I dove.

My life has not been a sheltered one. Taking risks, whether carefully calculated or foolhardy and impulsive, has been customary. Perhaps it's only natural that I've found my way to tree work, home to the world's most dangerous jobs, in Oregon, home to some of the world's biggest trees. It is here that I've embarked upon a new journey, tree climbing. Earlier this week, I got my first chance to climb in Oregon. I drove two hours south of Estacada, our current home, to meet up with a guy named Mark, who has been climbing trees for over forty years. He invited me to join him while he worked on a BLM timber sale, topping trees spared from the logging cycle, designated to become wildlife habitat snags. Cutting the top off a tree expedites its death and creates a home for small mammals, birds and insects, to counter some of the losses from logging.

There are a few rules to go by. The trees must be larger than twenty inches in diameter, cut with at least forty feet left standing. You leave the top of the tree where it falls, to become a grounded habitat tree. The trees we were focused on were Coast Douglas-Firs, meaning they were tall, very tall. This species commonly reach heights of 250', although the ones at this site were probably closer to 150'. Thus, the instruction was to climb up about a third to half of the tree and drop the rest to the ground.

When we set this training day up, I was ignorant of just what 'topping trees' actually entailed. To the uninitiated, like me, "topping trees" sounds pretty innocuous. You're just lopping off the top of a tree. How crazy can that be? I didn't know that topping trees is the most dangerous task a climber can do. Furthermore, I didn't know just how big these "tops" would be. To be honest, from where I sit now, I was just as well not knowing these things. There was enough anxiety just thinking about climbing up into a tall tree.

The night before I drove down to meet Mark, sleep was hard to find. My mind was racing. Although I knew very little about what I'd be doing the next day, it kept me awake. I had only climbed a single tree, back in Truckee. It was a sort of test set up to make sure I knew what I'd been asking for - to learn to climb. A guy I worked with had a 60' snag in his backyard. He'd limbed it and topped it, but was leaving it standing until he needs more firewood. He and my crew lead, who was connecting me to people up here in Oregon, wanted to see if I could get up there and keep my head and feel what it was like to be five or six stories off the ground, swaying in the wind on a tree trunk. Everything went well. I learned the heights were no problem for me. It was just exciting. If anything would prove to be a limiting challenge, it was the physical exhaustion part of it. Climbing with spikes and a flip line is demanding.

I'd been felling trees for two seasons, a full year put together. I've done enough forestry work to know the hazards, which are numerous and severe. Topping trees takes all the risks of felling on the ground and multiplies them several orders of magnitude. When you fall a tree from the ground, you carefully line out an 'escape route'. As soon as the tree begins to fall, you get as far away from it as possible along that path. When you're topping a tree, you're tethered to it, like being tied to the stump, no more than a foot or two of air between your chest and the tree, far enough off the ground where a fall is fatal.

My nerves were dramatic, yes, but justified. Before we went to bed, Em noticed a sullen silence had befallen me. She said I was acting the way I do when I feel trapped into something I don't want to do. I had been talking about learning how to climb for months, and now I was hours away from putting my money where my mouth was, and I was scared. I felt dreadful. I wondered if I was making a mistake. I'm just barely into this forestry world... Am I even qualified to jump ahead to climbing... Is this a reasonable thing to do? I don't remember imagining specific scenarios that evening, but I do know they all ended badly, with death, dismemberment, or paralysis. Em reminded me it was my choice to do this, and nobody would punish me for backing out, even the morning of. I felt committed. I'd been connected to this guy through a mutual friend I have a ton of respect for, and I'd agreed on a time and place. Deep down, laying right beside all the fear and anxiety, was a certainty that I had to show up.

Eventually I drifted off to sleep, cramming as many positive thoughts as I could into my brain in order to settle it down. This will be an adventure. This is a great learning opportunity. You don't have to do anything unsafely. Mark is an expert, he'll be watching out, guiding me. When I woke up, my hesitation was gone, the dreadfulness along with it. I felt calm acceptance wash over me, and I prepared to leave. I gave Emmalyn and the cats extra hugs. There was something.. more than usual in the "I love you," "goodbye," and "see you tonight." I felt a finality that's hard to describe.

The drive was beautiful. Winding along county roads thinly veiled in morning fog, layers of tall trees on every horizon receding into the mist, I headed south to face my fears. Small towns ticked by, Elwood, Colton, Molalla. I listened to my favorite music and enjoyed the time. I was patient, obeying the speed limits and putting plenty of space ahead of me. In part, my relaxed driving behavior was due to the CDL training I've been doing and the goal of keeping my record clear of anything that could impact my worthiness of the Class A license, but I was also in no rush. The time in my car was peaceful and comfy. It was a quiet prelude to an intense experience, and I basked in it. As the time en route displayed on my navigation app dwindled, my pulse gradually picked up.

I lost cell signal well ahead of the meeting place Mark had sent me to. If something had changed, if Mark couldn't make it or I was in the wrong place, I wouldn't know about it. He had told me what he'd be driving, and I was hoping I remembered it correctly. A brown Mazda pickup? Does Mazda even make pickups? Twenty minutes ticked by, just a few cars passed on the road as I waited, none of them slowing to check me out. Then, there he was, turning off the main road towards me. A little old brown Mazda truck with a roofed structure built into the bed. Sure enough, the truck slowed down and stopped beside me. The window dropped and a friendly face smiled out of it.

Mark told me to follow him up the road a few miles to the site we'd be working in. We drove through dense forest, full of mossy Dr. Seuss trees and bountiful sword ferns. Sometimes the canopy would close over the road like a tunnel. It was a bright blue day, nearly windless, dry and upper thirties, a blessed low-pressure rarity in January in Oregon. Conditions couldn't be better for climbing trees. I took a couple photos of the drive. Despite the momentous experience that would shortly follow, I didn't end up taking any more photos or videos, choosing to exclude the distractions a phone causes.

The pavement ended, and Mark turned onto a rocky path. I inspected it closely, and judged it to be pretty harmless for the little Prius. We drove another half mile or so and Mark parked after turning around to face the way we'd come in. That's how we'd do it in Truckee, I thought, always park as if you'll need to get out in a hurry. We got out and shook hands. I noticed Mark's icy blue eyes, white hair, his slight but solid figure, a bit shorter than me but obviously (to a careful eye) twice as strong. He wore beaten blue jeans, cut short like high-water pants, well worn leather work boots with small metal spikes on the soles, and a faded button up plaid shirt. Lumberjack, for sure, I thought. His gaze was intense, but friendly. He opened up the truck and started pulling out gear, showing me what he'd brought for me, a duplicate setup to the one he uses.

He had about six different small chain saws, three or four saddles, three sets of spikes, climbing rope, several steel-cored flip lines, saw gas and bar oil. He handed me a saddle, the harness you wear to hold things you need to bring into the tree, like a saw, a hatchet to break off limbs small enough not to saw, a small felling wedge you use to make sure the tree doesn't sit back on you, and yourself. You tie your climbing rope, used to rappel down the tree after you cut it, to the front-center loops, and you attach two 'flip lines', which wrap around the tree and enable you to shimmy up it. The spikes sit on the inside of your feet, attached to a metal frame you strap onto your shin and tie around your foot. These provide the traction you need to walk up the tree. They're also the most ungodly uncomfortable things I've ever worn.

Overall, it's not a ridiculous amount of gear, but it's all critical to climbing safely. Mark made sure my adopted gear fit well and was donned correctly, and showed me how he wraps the two flip lines around himself several times before clipping the loose end to his saddle. He handed me a saw and grabbed another for himself. We shouldered our climbing ropes and closed up the vehicles. I didn't want anything in my pockets, so I left my phone in the car and stashed my key on a stump, under a few scraps of bark. Not that there was anyone around to steal stuff. There were the occasional gunshots, typical of rural anywhere in America, and some very infrequent rumblings of ATV's or dirt bikes riding the public trails nearby, but mostly we had as far as we could see all to ourselves.

The site had been logged, the trees we needed to work on were left over, meaning the ground was littered with slash leftover from logging. It was a tangled mess of layers of branches and smaller fallen trunks laying every which way. Mark commented that just getting from tree to tree was tiring, and I soon found myself a tad fatigued. The gaffs, or spikes, we wore made the footwork so much more difficult, causing me to wonder if I'd be better off carrying them to the tree before putting them on. We arrived at the base of the first tree Mark had selected. I was to watch him go up and top the tree, come down and then he'd send me up just to climb it. The cutting would be left to later, if I got to it at all. Climbing was new and dangerous, and I wasn't in a rush to add so much right away.

Watching Mark work was a thing of beauty. He was fluid in his motions, efficient and light. He climbed with certainty, making the whole thing look like the most natural thing a person can do. When he got to the height he intended to top the tree at, roughly fifty feet from the ground, he set his spikes shoulder width apart and threw his climbing rope over his shoulder. He lowered it to me, a carabiner attached to the end, and I clipped his saw to it. He pulled the saw up with ease, fired it up, and quickly started cutting. Like I'd expect of a professional sawyer, he made swift work of the tree top. Two surgical cuts, one after the next, and a face wedge fell out of the tree, taking two full seconds to hit the ground. Then he moved laterally around the tree, checked his face cut before starting his back cut. Saw dust flew back at him and collected on his torso and legs. It looked beautiful against the sunlight. A couple seconds after he started cutting, the top of the tree began its terminal lean. The saw stopped, and for an instant there was no noise.

Then, the most remarkable sound - a whisper as the hundred foot tree top sailed through the air, wind whipping through its needles. I'd never heard a sound quite like it. This massive tree top, as large as the whole trees we cut in Truckee, fell five stories through the quiet January sky for what seemed like an unnaturally long period, lingering, floating. The closest thing I'd heard to that sound was from a flock of ducks flying just overhead in the cold, pre-dawn hour alongside a half-frozen pond in Minnesota while hunting. It was splendid. Then the tree hit the ground, and the peaceful whisper shattered into a thunderous crack-boom, which echoed for seconds across the terrain. I was invigorated by that cannon boom. The deep thud I'd grown so fond of in Truckee, a sound associated with a tree successfully felled, paled in comparison to the sound of one hitting the ground from fifty feet up. Approximately 2,600lbs. (Coast Douglas-Fir, 100' long, 20" diameter) of tree falling fifty feet makes a hell of a racket when it hits the earth.

Mark hooted something I can't quite remember, but it was sheer joy. He could have been five years old, just pure excitement for life issuing from his small figure way up in a tree. I felt similarly excited, although I'd realize a short time later, when it was my turn, just a wee fraction of how he felt. He rappelled down the tree with all the grace he'd exhibited climbing up and topping it. I remarked on the sound, the greatness and novelty of it, how it sang softly through the air before exploding on the ground. He confirmed my suspicion that it "never gets old." It's the same way I feel about falling trees, never really feels like a job.

I stepped up to the tree, threw my flip line around it, clipped it to the right side of my saddle and sank my right gaff into the bark. I pulled against the flip line as I straightened my right leg, investing weight and my trust into the spike, and stepped my left foot up just above my right. I walked up that tree, step, step, flip. Step, step, flip. Over and over until I got to the top where Mark cut the tree and rested my hand on the fresh face. The air felt so good. I felt the muscle fatigue already. My heart pounded in my chest as I climbed, causing me to take a couple pauses on the way up. I didn't wait up there long before readying to rap back down. There was much more to do, and I wanted to slow Mark down as little as possible while I learned. That, and it's damned tiring just holding your position against the tree, standing on two small spikes and leaning back uneasily against what is essentially a very strong leather belt.

Mark had cut a notch in the tree top, a 3-4 inch deep "V" with a flattened out bottom. I pulled up a length of my climbing rope, and laid it in the notch, as instructed. It took some effort and mental encouragement to drop down a couple small steps and put my weight on the rope. I tested it enough to trust it, and unclipped my flip line, which prior to that moment had been my lifeline to the tree. I gradually let rope through the rappelling device and tried not to go too fast or too slow, keeping just my toes periodically touching the tree trunk on my way down. When I got to the ground, I was all smiles, but my muscles ached. Those damned gaffs really dig into your shins & calves. The saddle pulled at my hips, and I could already feel slight bruising there.

We repeated that procedure, Mark topping the trees, me climbing up and rappelling down after, for another two trees. Each time it was harder to keep my feet from snagging branches as we walked between trees. My legs felt so heavy. The gear felt larger, more oppressive. But my mood was elevated, and I felt my mind and senses were sharper than normal. I was happy to be there. Each top Mark dropped produced the same sensational sounds and inspired the same awe in me. I was captivated by it, and told Mark as much when he asked me casually, "so, think this is something you're interested in?" "I am, very much so."

Then Mark pointed to a tree and told me I could take it if I wanted to. The time had come. My moment had arrived, when I either had to put action behind my desires to be a tree climber or back off and let it go. Take the risk or play it safe. I felt fear, raw and vivid. I was almost shaking with anticipation. I looked up at the tall Doug-fir and analyzed the lean, gauged where I'd climb to before cutting. Need to go at least forty feet, then higher because the less tree above me the less risky it is... I'd say sixty feet is about right for this one. But what do I know, this is my first one! Although I'd watched Mark do it several times, I knew it would all be new to me up there, new and frightening. I told him where I was thinking to cut, and the intended direction of the fall, and he agreed, giving me a small but appreciated bump of confidence.

Nobody was pressuring me. Mark would've been supportive if I said, "nah, not feeling it," and passed. In my experience in forestry, we never push each other if there's any sketchy feeling nagging at us. The tree can stand, if only for another day, less wind, a more rested sawyer, a calmer mind. Inside me though, I felt the need to test myself. I just couldn't go home without doing it. Watching wasn't enough. Climbing without cutting wasn't enough. Doing the whole thing was what I came here for. I had to experience it fully. In my gut I knew I'd go up there and get it done. In my heart and head, I hoped everything would go right and I'd come down safe and sound.

All the hemming and hawing, the back and forth debate, occurred within me in the span of seconds. "Yes," I said to Mark, "I'll take this one." I decided to clip the saw to my saddle on the ground and climb up with it. I unwound my lines from my waist, checked that my hatchet and wedge were still with me, my gaffs were strapped on tightly, and my flip lines were secured where they should be. I tied my climbing rope to my harness and looked up the tree. My gear was right. The conditions were right. My head was in the right spot, here, now. Mark was there for me. I had some advantages going for me, like my felling experience. I know my way around a saw and I'm confident in my cuts. I had scrutinized the lean of the tree, noticing how the limb weight was all favorable toward the side I wanted to drop it on. The boxes were checked. It was go time.

The climb went exactly as it had before, nice and steady, a couple pauses for rest. No need to rush. If this does go wrong, and it's your time to die, you'll want to savor these moments, the voice in my head reminding me how precious life is, along with a caution to take things seriously. There's a balance between being playful and enjoying this thing as a game, and being respectful, carrying the weight of all the times people have been injured or killed. If you take it too seriously, internalizing the risk to such a degree, you may not go through with it. If you minimize the danger and move too quickly, whether it's your first tree or your thousandth, you can get bit and chances are, in this work, in these trees, it will be a bite that kills you.

So up I went, pausing to knock off small dead limbs with my hatchet as I climbed. My muscles had ached before I sank my spikes into the base of this tree, but now that was sort of a distant memory. I suppose I have adrenaline to thank. I know my heart was thudding fiercely again. The beats were loud in my ears and reverberated throughout my whole body. I reached the spot where I'd cut the top off. I hollered down to Mark to tell him I was going to cut now. He shouted back "okay, but check your flip line. I think you want to climb up another foot or two." Sure enough, my line was angled positively, meaning if I drew a circle around the tree at chest height, that my saw would follow, I'd cut into my line. You want at least a neutral level, but it's best to have that line angled downwards, safely out of your cutting path. I adjusted and reached down for the saw, unclipped it from my saddle's steel ring, and brought it up to my chest.

Now my heart is really thumping. I can feel my blood coursing through me, felt a pressure growing in my head. Mark gave me his battery powered saw, so I wouldn't have to crank it to start. One less thing to do. I pressed one button to turn it on, and a second button to set the power high. I knew the chain was tuned up and sharp. Mark keeps his saws in shape. I held the bar away from the tree and tested it. All good. Alright, time to sink this chain into the tree. I started my gunning cut, reaching around the side of the tree, away from my body. Cutting in such close proximity felt weird. I'm used to a big saw with at least a 28" bar, this was so different. For some reason, I felt like I should be behind the face cut, so I did most of the cut blind. I had become pretty confident moving up and down the tree, but moving around laterally was still tentative. I wasn't in the right position, but the cuts came out true and I was able to lean around enough to make sure I had a clean face cut after I pushed the cut-out wedge into the air.

Just cut like when you're on the ground. I called down to Mark that I was starting my back cut, and made sure he was on the safe side of the tree. Of course he was, but good to check anyway. I took a few breaths, let my eyes pan along the horizon and noticed the beauty of my surroundings. It's a beautiful day to die, briefly, faintly, sprinted through my head. Not in a morbid way, but more a coming to complete terms with my situation. I felt scared, but I felt ready to give it a shot. The back cut was my point of no return. When I made my face cut I was committing, but if I didn't start my back cut it would probably be safe to stop and let Mark come up and finish it. Make sure you're ready. Make sure your lines are right and you make this cut level. Just like you're on the ground.

I cut into the back of the tree, steady, with confidence. For a moment, my height off the ground didn't exist in my head. There was only this cut. I had to make sure to keep the right amount of hinge wood in tact, stopping when about 1-2 inches of holding wood remained in order to control the falling tree. If you cut into your hinge, or cut further on one end than the other, you lose control of the tree and it can fall unpredictably. As I cut into the tree, I watched the top above me. When it began to move, I stopped cutting. Too soon! You've left too much holding wood, I knew I should've cut more, but at that point the top was falling and I didn't feel like pushing it by keeping the saw engaged.

The next moments went so slowly. Time stretched out. I noticed the kerf made by my saw growing wider and wider, seemingly taking seconds to raise an inch. When the tree had tilted enough, I started hearing and seeing fibers popping out of the hinge wood. It groaned. The top was separating. I felt the urge to escape, to get away from the tree. We NEVER stay close to a falling tree. NEVER. Yet there I was, eyes a mere foot away from this severance, locked in no matter what happened. The fear spiked. Adrenaline surged again as the top broke loose and fell away from me. The tree began to sway, reacting to the sudden change in balance. It's called catapulting. Tremendous forces are released, and the swaying is inevitable. By cutting short, leaving more holding wood than I needed to, I made the reaction more violent.

I held the saw and swayed with the tree, feeling a rush like I've never felt in my entire life. I watched the tree top sail through the sky below me. An absurd thing to say, isn't it? I loved the whispering needles, loved the high and the knowledge that I remained here, unharmed. When the thunderclap came I was already laughing, releasing so much pent-up energy, which came from fear but turned into joy. I yelled the laughter into the sky as the gunshot sound echoed against the hills and forests around us. I saw Mark smiling. The moment is seared into my memory.

Yes, this is for me. This is exactly what I want.

When I got back on the ground, awash in satisfaction and exhilaration, we moved to another area where Mark had spotted the next trees. I watched him top two more, then did another one myself. Same experience as the first one, only this time my back cut was better and I had less catapulting. It was every bit as thrilling as the first. All in all, Mark topped eight trees to my two, over the span of about four hours. As the sun lowered to the horizon, we made our way back to the vehicles.

I told Mark I'd love to come back down before he finishes his contract there, and thanked him for taking the time to get me started. He seemed to enjoy seeing somebody take a real interest in climbing, and we had a nice chat before we each hit the road. He headed for a nearby cabin he was borrowing for the duration of the job, and I made my way back up to Estacada. The two hours in the car was easy, I was so relaxed, exhausted but still mentally wide awake. My body felt great, thoroughly utilized and happy to be done with the ordeal.

When I got home, I told Em the story I've just written, probably talking her head off for twenty minutes straight. It was a lot to process. I was deeply grateful to return safe and sound, to hug Em and the cats again, putting an extra charge of love and appreciation in the simple act. Two days from now, I'll be headed back down to top some more trees with Mark. I feel like this is the beginning of a grand tree climbing adventure, and it just seems.. absolutely perfect.