Nature Connection: Climbing Trees

When I was a child, climbing a tree was one of my favorite things to do. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I was always on the lookout for a good climbing tree. Back in the day, they were everywhere.

A good climbing tree had decent lower limbs to help me get started. Then, branches had to be spaced in a way that didn’t stab or scrape me as I climbed, my legs bare and vulnerable. A perfect climbing tree had a branch that would hold me in relative comfort while I relaxed and looked around.

High in a tree, I could see the world differently. I was eye-to-eye with many birds. Mostly they went about their business as if I wasn’t there. Occasionally, one would come close to see what and who I was. The bird might land on a branch above or below me, tilting its head this way and that. Some would scold me, letting every bird and animal in the woods know exactly where this little human was hiding. Most, however, just checked me out, decided I wasn’t very dangerous, and went about their business.

I was free to read the book I’d stuffed in a pocket, but many times I’d just sit and watch and listen. It was a reprieve from a chaotic life down there in the real world. It wasn’t exactly peaceful because all the birds, bugs, and squirrels were very busy, but it was a different busy than my life on the ground, in my house, my school and my neighborhood. 

Depending on the time of year, I could watch the activities around me and follow the stories these activities exposed. I knew where the baby robins were and where the baby squirrels were testing their climbing and jumping skills. I discovered so many interesting-looking caterpillars and spiders that I realized there was a whole world of tiny creatures that went about their business, escaping the notice of most people, even those that lived within a few yards.

In the woods behind our house were many trees, mostly pitch pine and oak, the traditional trees that reforested the Cape after so much of the forest here was chopped down in the 1800s. There were maples here and there and prickly holly trees with their shiny green leaves. There were lots of bushes beneath the trees, mostly low-bush blueberries and huckleberries. Even lower than those were the princess pine and winterberry plants spreading over the ground. 

There were fallen trees covered in moss where the salamanders and snakes hung out, trees leaning against each other that sang and groaned together in the wind. There were squeaks and cracks, rustling leaves and snapping twigs as nature went about her business. I was small and quiet. Nature let me be and resumed activity almost immediately after I’d settled in on my favorite branch.

In my Hyannis neighborhood there were lots of trees and lots of kids. We were rather feral, allowed to run free, and we spent hours in the woods building forts and climbing trees. We played lookout and dared each other to climb the huge white pine that stood behind one of our friend’s houses. A dad had quietly added a few small boards as a ladder to help us get started up the massive trunk of this tree, and on some days there’d be half a dozen of us up in this grand old tree swapping stories and looking out over the rooftops of our neighbor’s houses. That tree remains, although much of the forest around it is now gone, turned into a housing development.

Most of the other trees are gone, replaced with yards and swing sets, driveways and roads. The last time I saw it, the old white pine looked unhappy, but that could be me, not the tree. Long gone are many of its neighboring trees, though not all. Also gone are the old wooden rungs we all climbed on, so I wonder if any of the neighborhood children even think of climbing it any more. 

Climbing a tree was not only a skill that required forethought and some physical abilities, but it gave us a feeling of power and a chance to look back at the world on the ground we’d just left. We felt the rough or smooth bark against our skin, and we learned how to test a branch to see if it would hold our weight. We were one with the forest for the brief time we were held in the branches, up in the air with the birds and squirrels. Moving from branch to branch without falling helped us develop our problem solving skills. Getting down from our perches could prove the scariest times of all, but here we are, still alive, still more or less intact.

It's true that tree climbing can be dangerous if not done correctly. We got scrapes and cuts and some of us got broken bones, but mostly we emerged back on the ground ready for our next adventure. I don’t know how many kids get to climb trees today. They seem to prefer the manufactured climbing walls in recreational areas to the real thing, and to be fair, if all the kids climbed the few trees left in some areas, the trees would suffer more than the kids.

I feel fortunate to have had a childhood that included so many trees and all the creatures I got to know as a result of my climbing. From a very young age I understood I was a part of nature and that we were dependent on the trees, the streams, the sky and the air we breathed along with every animal and plant we met along the way. 

If you can’t climb a tree today, at least give one a hug.