Some questions for you lovely climbers about an app for finding good trees to climb

[lukehesluke]

It's really expensive to make an app. Who is going to pay for that? How would they see a return on that investment?

Maybe just check out tree o caching? www.treestuff.com/cache

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That's fun!

 

[lukehesluke]

UPDATE

Thanks for all your replies, especially the critical ones. Due almost entirely to this thread, I've had a re-think about what kind of problem exactly I'm trying to solve. It seems to me to be two things:

(If you can’t be arsed to read this, I’m gonna create a sub-reddit instead of an app)

1. As a person who lives in the UK, I want to know the law around tree climbing - at the national level, the county level, the park level. So I have enough information that I can 'get out there' and go looking for some MF’ing trees. I want this information to be easy to digest, sufficiently thorough and available to absolutely anyone on the internet

2. As a person who lives in a city (in my case, London), I feel deprived of the kind of natural adventure of the countryside - climbing a tree, walking a canopy, scrambling up hills, gorges, running new route everyday. These kinds of thrills can be found in cities in parkour, slack-lining, tree-climbing, skating, etc, but you need to find the perfect spot. And they’re tucked away - some people find them, some people don’t


I’m not really sure what to do about the second problem as it has a bunch of nuances about safety, deterioration, and getting people to co-operate. For now, I want to solve the first problem with a regional community of tree climbers (probably a sub-reddit) with regional information such as laws, tree types, etc. In the community, people can post anything like tips, experiences, even spots (to as much detail as e.g. “bunch of oaks towards the south of Battersea Park”). If the community stays small, problem #2 doesn’t need solving, if not, that’s a great challenge


Cheers youse guys

 

[macswan]

UPDATE

Thanks for all your replies, especially the critical ones. Due almost entirely to this thread, I've had a re-think about what kind of problem exactly I'm trying to solve. It seems to me to be two things:

(If you can’t be arsed to read this, I’m gonna create a sub-reddit instead of an app)

1. As a person who lives in the UK, I want to know the law around tree climbing - at the national level, the county level, the park level. So I have enough information that I can 'get out there' and go looking for some MF’ing trees. I want this information to be easy to digest, sufficiently thorough and available to absolutely anyone on the internet

2. As a person who lives in a city (in my case, London), I feel deprived of the kind of natural adventure of the countryside - climbing a tree, walking a canopy, scrambling up hills, gorges, running new route everyday. These kinds of thrills can be found in cities in parkour, slack-lining, tree-climbing, skating, etc, but you need to find the perfect spot. And they’re tucked away - some people find them, some people don’t


I’m not really sure what to do about the second problem as it has a bunch of nuances about safety, deterioration, and getting people to co-operate. For now, I want to solve the first problem with a regional community of tree climbers (probably a sub-reddit) with regional information such as laws, tree types, etc. In the community, people can post anything like tips, experiences, even spots (to as much detail as e.g. “bunch of oaks towards the south of Battersea Park”). If the community stays small, problem #2 doesn’t need solving, if not, that’s a great challenge


Cheers youse guys

There is a British forum similar to this one, the name is escaping me at moment, if you haven't found it yet you should. That would probably be a great meeting place

 

[bonner1040]

Arbtalk


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[macswan]

Yes, what him say

 

[moss]

Here is a DIY cambium saver that can be made at low cost:

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Ha, I recognize that sycamore, good climbing tree, along a river near Northhampton, Massachusetts, U.S.

 

[moss]

Basically when you talk about good trees you're talking about a person's "investment" in spending many hours roaming woods, it's a valuable asset reflecting the ability of a person to understand where amazing trees will grow on their area. That person will not want to "give away" that hard-earned information, firstly (as others have mentioned) to protect potentially vulnerable habitat on the ground and in the canopy. Tricky business eh?
-AJ

 

[John@TreeXP]

I'm presently working with my local park and rec dept to create a path for rec-tree-climbers to obtain provisional use permits for tree climbing in designated parkland areas. Certain areas are better suited with trees than others, but while trees are living beings, things can change very quickly, from one day to the next, due to weather, etc. If anything, perhaps an app showing designating areas that are recreational-tree-climber-friendly, along with well documented, clear and concise conditions or limitations and steps one can take to legally climb trees in these specific areas would be awesome.

In the interim, there may be private property owners who would benefit or enjoy having someone climb their property's trees, perhaps to photograph the property from a canopy's perspective, or to draw attention to these potential old-growth treasures. I even remember seeing some hold-harmless type agreements suited for just this kind of activity.

 

[hatchetation]

I'm presently working with my local park and rec dept to create a path for rec-tree-climbers to obtain provisional use permits for tree climbing in designated parkland areas.

That's rad to hear! What led you to pursue this? ie, As far as I can tell, Seattle Parks use guidelines are silent on the subject of climbing - are Bainbridge's more explicit?

I've always tried to fly under the radar, especially after a recent kerfuffle over slacklining in Seattle parks - it was eventually explicitly allowed, but not until there was a lot of misguided enforcement actions and media coverage. Having a path to explicit permission would be great.

 

[John@TreeXP]

I'm in touch with an employee at BI Parks and have discussed a process where he submits a written proposal to his Board of Directors, outlining a responsible certification process path for recreational tree climbers. I've offered to present a sound case in support of such a permit to individuals who can clearly demonstrate properly trained climbing abilities, knowledge, skill, and who have the appropriate (weight rated) gear, approved by OSHA, etc. We're calling it a "provisional use permit".

What lead me to this point is that I'm just another fully equipped recreational-tree-climber, looking for places to climb trees. It just seems like the right thing to do, being how we are already so blessed to be living in the Pacific Northwest; a rain forest like none other in the world.

I should keep on him about this.

 

[SomethingWitty]

I'm in touch with an employee at BI Parks and have discussed a process where be submits a written proposal to his Board of Directors, outlining a responsible certification process path for recreational tree climbers. I've offered to present a sound case in support of such a permit to individuals who can clearly demonstrate properly trained climbing abilities, knowledge, skill, and who have the appropriate (weight rated) gear, approved by OSHA, etc. We're calling it a "provisional use permit".

What lead me to this point is that I'm just another fully equipped recreational-tree-climber, looking for places to climb trees. It just seems like the right thing to do, being how we are already so blessed to be living in the Pacific Northwest; a rain forest like none other in the world.

I should keep on him about this.

I like this.
That would be a lovely sort of certification to have exist.