Strangest Thing You've Ever Retrieved From a Tree?

[Reach]

I figure this is about as good a way to introduce myself as any, so hello TreeBuzzers! I have been following this forum for a long time, but only just finally got around to actually joining so that I could contribute my own little bits of knowledge and large doses of opinion instead of just freeloading off everybody else here in anonymity. So I decided that an event from Saturday might be worthy of an introductory post.

Over my years of climbing, I have had calls for various normal objects stuck up in trees. The usual, cats, kid's toys, a model airplane or two, one time a guy called to see if we would remove a hornet's nest! What climber really wants to voluntarily enter a tree full of hornets? But anyway, Saturday afternoon I got a call from a middle school science teacher asking if we could help with a small problem. He had a weather balloon stuck in the top of a tree. Apparrently his students launched the balloon somewhere near Wilkes Barre, with the intent that it would land in Lancaster County, as there are many farm fields here. Well the balloon missed hundreds of acres of open field by about 15'... We retrieved it this morning, from the top of a Red oak, about 90' up.

This afternoon I met with the teacher to return the balloon and its instruments, he told me it probably reached an altitude of about 21 miles before it burst and parachuted back to earth. He's going to send me some of the pictures an onboard camera took, and I will share a couple when they arrive. In the meantime, I am going to post a couple cell phone pictures of the retrieval from today.

 

[Mitch Hoy]

To date, a 3’ red iguana, 40’ up in a very decurrent silver. Silver bull mesh side bag saved the day.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Cool retrieval !

Nice to have you uncloaked

In case you’re curious this topic has come up in the past. It’s always interesting to see what climbers find

 

[Reach]

Cool retrieval !

Nice to have you uncloaked

In case you’re curious this topic has come up in the past. It’s always interesting to see what climbers find

It is always interesting, and I’ve read many tales of strange retrievals. I will be sure to look up some past threads on the topic just for a laugh, but I haven’t seen any posts on the subject lately so I figured it would be a better introduction than just “Hey, I climb trees with a chainsaw. What do you do?”

 

[Scratch]

I've retrieved a drone before, that's my weirdest thing retrieved. Ok... It's my only thing retrieved... And it was mine.

 

[cerviarborist]

A lot of my throwballs have been weird over the years....................

 

[Talon Tree Service]

A little over 2 weeks ago I retrieved a 4 year old kid from around 50 foot up in a pine. He got up there and refused to come down, said he wanted to stay in the tree. I built him a rope harness that probably was uncomfortable as hell, tethered him to my zigzag and hung a doubled rope setup, then brought him down. On his own independent setup. He was pissed, the parents were pissed, and it was probably the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life. I had that kid tethered to the tree in 4 places at one point. I’ve decided to take a climber rescue course, primarily because of this experience.
Made $0 on the job, but the parents said they were going to have the pine tree cut down and wouldn’t even think of hiring anyone else. Not everyday we get to feel like superman but I’ll take it

 

[Serf Life]

And the parents take it out on the tree when they were not paying attention to their kid. Typical. That kid might be groomed into a good climber tho...

 

[climbstihl]

The strangest thing I've retrieved from a tree? Probably myself.

 

[RopeShield]

shards of fractured wood mangled racoon. it was in the base of failed leader/cavity
rabid racoon also got tangled in my throwline had to club it to death and put it out of its misery after it fell from the tree.

 

[Richard Mumford-yoyoman]

Fish skeleton

 

[RBJtree]

I once retrieved a dead squirrel, but its the story that counts. I was cutting into a log and saw a little fur come out with the chips. Unfortunately, I knew what that ment. So I moved up 6 inches and made a new cut. That one was clean. The log was hollow except for the squirrel who's head I had just cut about a half inch into without hitting any other part of the squirrel. I felt bad to have killed the little guy, so as to not make its death a complete waste, I took it home and ate it.

 

[Mitch Hoy]

I once retrieved a dead squirrel, but its the story that counts. I was cutting into a log and saw a little fur come out with the chips. Unfortunately, I knew what that ment. So I moved up 6 inches and made a new cut. That one was clean. The log was hollow except for the squirrel who's head I had just cut about a half inch into without hitting any other part of the squirrel. I felt bad to have killed the little guy, so as to not make its death a complete waste, I took it home and ate it.

The strange places squirrel killer’s guilt takes us...

 

[Benjo75]

Yoyoman, think the fish skeleton was placed there by a racoon or a tornado? I saw live fish in my driveway when I was younger right after a tornado.

I got a call from a doctor. His $3k drone was in a tree 100 ft up. I'm tied up for several days. He wanted it out no matter the cost. That's the magic words to get me over there. Sure enough it was right at 100 ft up. Luckily I brought the 100 ft bucket. Finally got set up on the side of a hill with the outriggers in the mud and still more unlevel than I like. Had to use a couple of fiberglass poles to reach it. It had a heavy wal mart sack tied to it. The good doctor was flying some diapers and baby powder about 3 blocks over to his in laws house who was keeping his baby for the night. Didn't even make it out of his own yard with the thing. Had an orbital camera on the bottom and the doctor had a headset on and was seeing what the drone saw. I told my wife that you would expect something like that out of me but this guy actually operates on people.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

@Benjo75 WOW! what a story! spendy diapers...how out of touch with reality!

 

[ATH]

A little over 2 weeks ago I retrieved a 4 year old kid from around 50 foot up in a pine. He got up there and refused to come down, said he wanted to stay in the tree. I built him a rope harness that probably was uncomfortable as hell, tethered him to my zigzag and hung a doubled rope setup, then brought him down. On his own independent setup. He was pissed, the parents were pissed, and it was probably the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life. I had that kid tethered to the tree in 4 places at one point. I’ve decided to take a climber rescue course, primarily because of this experience.
Made $0 on the job, but the parents said they were going to have the pine tree cut down and wouldn’t even think of hiring anyone else. Not everyday we get to feel like superman but I’ll take it

So....I've only been called on one cat rescue. I had to bite my tongue to not make the offer I wanted: "half price if I can do it from the ground with my Big Shot". I don't think I could have resisted at least making that offer if it was a bratty kid LOL.

 

[ATH]

.....But anyway, Saturday afternoon I got a call from a middle school science teacher asking if we could help with a small problem. He had a weather balloon stuck in the top of a tree. Apparrently his students launched the balloon ......

I got call last year to help with a school weather balloon. It was about 45 minutes away from me and I was swamped...I couldn't think of a way to make it work out at a reasonable price for them so I referred them to somebody who was a lot closer and wouldn't have to recover travel time and expenses. Would have been cool to help with if it wasn't such a busy time and so far away.

Look forward to the pics from the balloon.

 

[Chaplain242]

First year climbing dropped a 24’ branch and rig line snapped (accidentally nicked it doing precariously positioned notch) and branch luckily dropped into top of 40’ palm over neighbours pool pump. Had to abseil down and then pendulum across to land in top of palm to attach MA hoist line to it whilst neighbours watched with their lawyers phone number dialed into their phone whilst I tried to assure them it was all going to turn out alright... was interesting sensation standing on top of a palm...

 

[Reach]

I received a few pictures last night from the weather balloon; it’s amazing the views from 105,000 feet where the balloon finally burst. It’s a little chilly up there too, -86F!

 

[Big Kawika]

I'm a retired coconut tree trimmer. But now im a 9 year paraglider pilot. I still need my adrenaline fix as an old man. You can probably figure out the rest of the story from here. One of my buddies crashed into and snagged his wing up in a eucalyptus tree and was stuck 60 feet up. He received only minor scrapes. We were trespassing and would get in big expensive trouble if the authorities were called, so i drove home 10 minutes and got my gaffs, harness, ropes and associated nessesary gear. I spiked up then lowered him down using his paragliding harness, then myself in my good old Buckingham harness. The wing remained tangled in the tree. This is a tree stand of thousands of "invasive species" eucalyptus trees, thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyways, a $4,000 wing needed to be removed ( QUIETLY). So like 2 evil little 007 agents, it took us 2 nights to "quietly" handsaw drop that tree.and scurry away with a torn up paraglider wing. No witnesses, fines or trespassing charges were filed against us. This would have made headline news in our quiet little town if we weren't carefull and quiet. I used a 150ft length of 16 strand hivee 1/2in arborist rope and a stainless steel figure 8 tied off to a branch to lower the pilot. I then double rope repelled down. Just 2 of us involved in this caper.