TREE-CLIMBING TOURS IN TRAVERSE CITY

TREE-CLIMBING TOURS IN TRAVERSE CITY:
AS EXTREME (OR NOT) AS YOU WANT TO BE

By MIKE NORTON
 
TRAVERSE CITY, MI – The dunelands of Northern Michigan have lots of sand, but no rocky cliffs or mountains. So what do you do when the climbing bug strikes?
 
Climb a tree, of course!
 
“Everybody here is  involved with outdoor adventures of one kind or another, and we’re surrounded by some of the biggest, nicest trees in North America,” ” says arborist Bo Burke. “It’s just a natural thing to do.”
 
Burke should know. For the past year he’s been taking artists, photographers, birders and other “tree huggers” on technical climbs into some of the Traverse City area’s biggest and best trees. Technical tree climbing with ropes and harnesses is the new frontier in outdoor adventure, Burke says; it’s more exciting than climbing a rock face because it’s a three-dimensional experience -- but it’s not as difficult or as terrifying as many people think.
 
“There are degrees of difficulty,” he says. “I teach kids as young as seven and seniors as old as 77. It’s really up to each climber, and how much they want to challenge themselves. They can go up as high as they want. There’s no set goal – it’s about getting off the ground and enjoying the world from another perspective.”

People have been climbing trees for fun ever since the first youngster found he could reach a low-hanging branch. But organized recreational climbing with modern equipment got its start in the early 1980s with an arborist and rock-climber named Peter "Treeman" Jenkins, who founded Tree Climbers International, the world's first tree climbing school, in Atlanta.
 
Burke does individual climbs and even group tours (some large trees can accommodate 12 to 15 people at a time) using a basic doubled-rope technique that employs a sliding friction knot known as a Blake’s Hitch. Climbers wear recreational harnesses for safety, but rarely need any other special gear. In the past year, he’s taught more than 200 people to climb.
 
“We do birthday parties, dinners, sunrises and sunsets, artists, birders, and people who just want to get away by themselves,” he says. So far there haven’t been any requests for treetop weddings, but he figures it’s only a matter of time.
 

One satisfied student is photographer Ken Scott, who lives on the nearby Leelanau Peninsula and took climbing lessons from Burke this summer. It was his first rope-assisted climb.  “Bo is an awesome instructor,” he says.
 
A Michigan native, Burke didn’t have any particular interest in trees until he moved to Colorado, where he happened upon a tree-pruning crew and decided it looked like a great way to make a living. As it happened, they needed someone who was willing to start at the bottom and work his way up. Along the way, he learned tree biology, identification, climbing safety and good tree care practices and eventually became a certified arborist.
 
After several years in Colorado and Chicago (where he worked as a tree surgeon for the city parks district) he started missing the wilderness again and decided to move to Traverse City, in the northwest corner of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. And although he found plenty of work trimming trees, he decided he’d much rather spend his time teaching people to climb them, so he founded a company called BBCA/Climb A Tree to do just that.
 
Burke describes his tree-climbing classes as “eco-adventures.” Student climbers get lessons in tree biology and proper tree care before starting their three-hour climb, for which he charges $150 per person. (Group rates are available.) And although summer is probably the busiest season for tree-climbing, it’s not his favorite.

 
“I think fall is one of the really nice times to be up in the trees,” he says. “You’re surrounded by the colors and you can hear the leaves whispering all around you in the wind. In winter, you can be up in the top of the trees and see for miles because the leaves are gone. You can even watch the little animals running around on the ground.”
 
 And to watch a fast-motion video of Bo giving climbing lessons to photographer Ken Scott, go tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkQNJksu5_M

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