Fall Tree Climbing 2010

Monkey Run, Hoffman Challenge Course, and Stuart Park, Ithaca, NY

Fridays, September 10th, 17th, 24th, and October 1-2nd, 2010

Yet again, I taught Friday Tree Climbing for COE. This semester, I taught with Colin C, Colin E, and Drew. We tried to differentiated the Colins by renaming them Thing 1 and Thing 2, but no one could remember which was which.

This year's was another fabulous group-- really involved and engaged. I have high hopes that we'll even get some future tree instructors out of it. I also started to notice some of the ridiculous traditions that are becoming a necessary part of the course. For instance, we don't hardly even know why anymore, but we always keep snack a surprise, and refer to snack time as "super secret powwow time." Tree climbing is a pretty young program, so I basically know all of the instructors who taught it in the beginning, but the students we're teaching now know those people only as names attached to absurd stories and bizarre traditions. I hope some of these quirks will stick with the program-- I like to think that the other instructors and I have a lasting impact of some kind.

Our whole class up on the platform for the overnight. I was on ground crew for this one, which meant I got to carry out one of Devin's traditions: as ground crew, wait until everyone is on the platform and settled into their sleeping bags about to go to sleep, then ascend up and read them a bedtime story. Specifically, the Lorax. When you're done, you just rappel into the darkness. It's funny how peaceful it makes you to hear a bedtime story as you drift off to sleep-- all the students really love it.

This tradition's mine-- last year, I started bringing a pirate flag to the last day of climbing, and assigning it as a special mission for someone to climb up as high as possible with it. Zac took the job very seriously.