women climbers

A few times. Spent many summers swimming and fishing on swanzey lake in NH though!! I'll let old bruce know
 
Well as the smiley happy bald guy explains I am a woman tree person. Unfortunately I have to do it only recreationally now. My body has given out on me a bit. Carpal tunnel and tennis elbow.
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But my true passion is with tree care. I climbed and pruned and was a bucket operator for about 10 - 11 years and now I am in sales at a landscaping company. Still climbing when the weather lets me and I have the time. Love the trees and they will love you.
 
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Workin with the Ontario women's champ the girl can flat out climb!
Former student of mine and it is quite the honor for me to work with her as a peer
Rev

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Also I have worked with my wife for years!
She is a horticulturalist and a arborist!
She has climbed but most of all a groundie for me and I trust her with all I have
Besides she works harder and drags brush with the best
Some of you who know who you are, should be ashamed
Besides she can out work most men I have had on crew and she is easy on the eyes!
Dream come true
Rev
 
We have a bucket/climber foreman locally, she can flat-out climb. She also knows what she's doing, rigging, roping on trims & take-downs. If it helps, she could have been a fashion model . Blonde, vivid blue eyes , 5 ft. 10 in. & a winning smile.
 
In the world of real statistics, aren't either the men or the women proven to be more adept at areas like Mathematics?

Would that carry-over into tree care in any way, where mathematical calculations were essential, like tallying wood weight, selecting gear for loads, or determining percentages?

Or would the difference be more exclusive to pure math like calculations on paper?

Otherwise, I would expect men and women to prune and care for trees virtually equally well.
 
My wife Wendy was my groundie as well, when I started my own biz.

But she got pregnant, so I started to use one of my seasonals from the city. I miss doing work if Wendy, we had fun.
 
Woman are naturally better climbers than men as they have a better center of balance and are usually more flexible. Without fail, if you take two healthy rookies, a woman and a man to the crag; the woman will outperform the man. Men usually try to power their way up the wall with their arms while women naturally use their legs and their balance to finese the climb.

I think there are not more woman in the business because women are not as naturally attracted to chainsaws as men are. I think this has potential to change with the awesome handsaws that are out there as well as the improvement in technology that allows for lesser upper body strength.

My current climbing apprentice is a woman and I wouldnt trade her for anything. One of the great things about her is her eye for safety lapses, from the first day on the job she was telling me to get my safety glasses on. Every crew should have women around to keep things right.
 
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Woman are naturally better climbers than men as they have a better center of balance and are usually more flexible. Without fail, if you take two healthy rookies, a woman and a man to the crag; the woman will outperform the man. Men usually try to power their way up the wall with their arms while women naturally use their legs and their balance to finese the climb.

I think there are not more woman in the business because women are not as naturally attracted to chainsaws as men are. I think this has potential to change with the awesome handsaws that are out there as well as the improvement in technology that allows for lesser upper body strength.

My current climbing apprentice is a woman and I wouldnt trade her for anything. One of the great things about her is her eye for safety lapses, from the first day on the job she was telling me to get my safety glasses on. Every crew should have women around to keep things right.

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Some of that makes sense.

In some cases, it appears that climbing, gear and saws are what attract men OR women to work with trees - more so than a love for horticulture and plants.

I've encountered scores of tree climbers locally, who entered tree work mainly as a job of opportunity - and just stuck with it.

There's the high end of the spectrum. But I'm amazed at how big the low end of the spectrum is, where those climbers invest minimal effort to understand trees.

The lower end of the spectrum don't really even migrate to information online, let alone books or classes. It's just a job and equipment to them.
 
We all don't have to be gay for the trees, now. I like em enough, but at the end of the day it's merely a well paying job.
 
Wow MB, someones paying you to sit around on tree websites and talk and think about trees all day? Dang man, I want your job. Where do I apply.

Maybe I am just bad at it but if I were out to make a chunk of money I would stay as far away from treework as I could.

I hear private security contracting is pretty lucrative nowadays, i'd probably start there.
 
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We all don't have to be gay for the trees, now. I like em enough, but at the end of the day it's merely a well paying job.

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For me, it started with liking trees and horticulture.

But it was just a matter of months until I realized that at the end of the day, or the end of the year, it was equally about the people.

I rarely tend to get crap customers, so most of mine are like my friends. We visit, we have coffee and lunch together, and we exchange ideas.

So the end of my day is not a well paying day, it's the continuation and growth of a friendship.

After reflecting on the people side of things for a moment, it seems that a lot of women may be even better suited for arborist work than many of the men, because on average, I think women have more of a caring nature for people in-general. I'd expect that their chances of success would be very good, in regards to people and trees.
 
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Wow MB, someones paying you to sit around on tree websites and talk and think about trees all day? Dang man, I want your job. Where do I apply.

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"Ain't it cool?"
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Well I’d say 85% of my work is wrecking, unfortunate but true. So being caring, considerate, thoughtful, mathematical doesn’t figure as much as having will-power, strength, stamina, courage, intuition, logic and ability to brutalize when need be.

A little off putting perhaps?
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Well, when you’re climbing big trees in the rain most days, or under the constant threat of rain and wind as we are here at the moment, then you need to be able to ‘find the answers’ in order to be productive.

Now I would never dream of getting into a ‘who is the better sex’ generalization-talk, because we’re all individuals aren’t we! However, I thought it was only fair to point out what I’d consider as equally valuable attributes to the ones that have already been mentioned. Sometimes you have to win ugly in order to win, being cute doesn't always cut it.

FWIW,I have only worked ever with a couple of women treeworkers in the past and they were just great...not sure what they think of me though!
 
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Woman are naturally better climbers than men

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Women and men are different. If women are naturally better than climbers than men, why does the ITCC require women to footlock to a lower height and give extra time in other prelims, as well as the master's? Now, having said that, Rebecca Richardson (MN) and Chrissy Spence could hang with most men in the five-state area... but naturally better? Sorry, genetics say otherwise.
 
In my experience rock climbing, with new climbers, women seem to be naturally better at getting up the rock than men. Men are much stronger which is true but genetically are made with a higher center of balance and this takes learning to overcome. Men, because of their larger muscles are also usually much tighter and less flexible.

I dont know why the footlock should be lower for the woman. I dont see why women cant climb 50 feet just as easily. I mean nobody says that woman cant run as far as men or swim as far. A womans marathon is the same distance as a mans.

Yes the mens times will be faster but if you look at form, stamina, and balance i personally think woman are generally the more gifted sex. Just my thoughts.

As for having to be able to grind through work, thats up to you. The more I climb, the less I like doing that. Tree work should be easy. If your grinding and beating yourself up than you could be doing something better. Where I learned to climb by grinding through it, I think it is possible to figure out the smart way first.

The biggest barrier to more female treeworkers as I see it is the big saws. I barely have the strength to manage those at the end of a long day. But there is plenty of treeclimbing that doesnt even have to go there.
 
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As for having to be able to grind through work, thats up to you. The more I climb, the less I like doing that. Tree work should be easy. If your grinding and beating yourself up than you could be doing something better. Where I learned to climb by grinding through it, I think it is possible to figure out the smart way first.

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Work smart not hard, I couldn't agree more treebling. But when you're competing against other equally smart operators, who are hungry for the work, then you need the ability to dig deep and find something extra.

I can believe what you say about recreational rock-climbing etc but commercial tree-climbing is a different kettle of fish IM0.
 
Maybe your right. I dont know. All i know is that it has always been really annoying to me to have to go to work everyday with a bunch of ugly dudes. I cant believe that there are not more kick a-- girls out there that can make all of our lives better. I bet people will pay more to have their trees pruned by women. This could counteract the competitive drawbacks that you mention. I really do believe that women could and should be much better represented up in the canopy.
 
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