Imagup General Magazine 2024
Climbing trees as kids were one of the most interesting and happy memories of our childhood. The feeling of ascending higher until there isn’t any branch to step on any further, and the excitement climbing in groups was beyond explanation. Back then, all we did was just have fun with friends as much as we could before everyone headed back home. Little did we knew that tree climbing had a lot more to do with it than the playing around dirty old bark of trees.
As an adult now, we have now been advised to take tree climbing a bit more serious than we did as kids. Some folks even go as far as making a profession out of it. Hold on a minute, yes I said that! People make a profession out of tree climbing. Let’s quickly take a walk into the forest life as we climb trees and see what falls off this.
Since we have a word combination of professional and tree climbing, it has to involve sporting activities. Yes, it does, but that’s not all there is to professional tree climbing. “The International Tree Climbing Championship” is a sporting tournament held to showcase the best arborists in the world. The tasks given by the championship committee are quite challenging and may involve a few multitasking at a stage in the championship. According to usrigging.com, a US gear provider, they are challenged to use their high-grade equipment to climb trees safely while simultaneously carrying out one or two other tasks with a ticking clock to time their speed.
The championship by the ITCC do not just welcome people who climb trees for fun. Of course, to be a professional in tree climbing, you have to love climbing for fun, but that’s not the only prerequisite. A series of inspections and qualifying tournaments would have been done locally before the ITCC events come up. That way, the board is guaranteed they are testing professionals; who are often referred to as “Climbing Surgeons” in the championship.
Aside from sporting activities, there are other careers in tree climbing as well. To mention a few, we have treehouse and zipline construction, research in arboriculture, and ariel rigging for multimedia capture. Tree scaling is also one such profession under tree climbing. So if you’ve ever been interested in knowing the exact measurement of a tree, then this is just for you. If you never knew, then know that the canopy which is 10 meters thick, houses a few above 90% of the animals in the rainforest habitat.
Professional tree climbers often have their routine training across this canopy ecosystems. Workouts that include hours of climbing and a full week trek in rainforest locations. Zipline systems are also set up for those who want to experience an unforgettable ride 100 feet above the rainforest floor.
As we have seen so far, tree climbing is great as a profession, for fun, sport, and sometimes a good tourist adventure. However, the healing power and rehabilitation benefits that come with tree climbing has been one of the secrets the Japanese have kept from the world.
There are just a few tree rehabilitation programs in the world today, that helps young disabled kids experience tree climbing. Innovative technology has also been helping in designing adaptive gears to enhance tree climbing experiences for the disabled. These programs transfer the exciting feeling climbing a tree gives to the climber.
